The Dawn That Shines Through To The Dusk
by Shadow Master
Summary: (BtVS/Terminator Universe/Stargate SG-1/Metal Gear Universe) Some people are so stubborn they'll take the hard route even when an easier one is pointed out to them. Good thing there exist meddling friends willing to provide help whether it's welcome or not.
1. Chapter 1

"The Dawn That Shines Through to the Dusk" by Shadow Master

email: ryley[underscore]breen

(BtVS/Terminator Universe/Stargate SG-1/Metal Gear Universe)

Disclaimer: I do not own any of the copyrighted material contained herein. They are the rightful property of their respective creators and/or associated companies. I make no profit from this whatsoever and I have no intention of changing this at any point in the future. I write because it's fun and because there are those who enjoy reading my works. Therefore I would appreciate it if no legal action were taken against me. I can assure you that whatever money you get from me will not make the entire process worth it.

Note : This idea came about after pondering some possibilities from the Terminator series. It's such an important part of pop culture that you'd have to have been living under a rock not to have heard of it. However it was when I considered the possible ways to combine it with the BtVS universe that an idea was formed that quickly took on a life of its own. Before I knew it I'd added the TV show 'Stargate SG-1 to the mix along with the Metal Gear universe. This is the result.

Note 2: As always if you are a devout follower of canon and consider any deviation from that canon to be sacrilege then I suggest you turn around and find another story to read. While I'll do my best to remain true to the source material I will make whatever alterations I see fit in order to ensure that things proceed the way I want them to. This is my hobby, my story, and the only person really that I need to satisfy in the end is me.

Note 3: If any of you have any suggestions for future plot points or story arcs I'm willing to listen under the condition that the ideas mesh with the story I've written up until the date of the idea submission. As I've mentioned this is a hobby of mine and something I enjoy doing. Going back and rewriting things to accommodate a reader's suggestion would be a bother and therefore will be ignored.

Now that that's out of the way let's raise the curtain and get things started

 _The Dawn That Shines Through to the Dusk_

 _ **British Sovereign Base Area, Cyprus**_

 _ **January 18**_ _ **th**_ _ **, 1980**_

 _The things I do to repay a debt,_ he thought as he drive up to the base area gate in a 'borrowed' military jeep. _Still, if Suzetta was telling the truth, then the payoff will make it all worth it._

Reaching for a ring that adorned his right hand, he whispered a brief incantation to activate the accessory's arcane feature. It would place over his exposed skin an illusionary image that would make all exposed to it believe he was someone who had every right to be wherever he wanted to go. Best of all the same person would forget about him less than a minute later, meaning he wouldn't have to worry about any annoying calls to other members of the base adding to his difficulties. The only flaw in the item was that it only affected human eyes. Those orbs of a technological or nonhuman nature would notice the deception right away and that was often a very bad thing.

Still, what could you expect of a ring developed by a wizard two centuries ago for the sole purpose of infiltrating the bedroom of any pretty girl that caught his eye and having his way with them?

Seeing the guard at the gate exit his booth to approach, he mentally prepared himself to act every bit like fake identity his clothes implied him to be. Fortunately for him he had some experience with those of high rank and, no matter what organization, all such people tended to behave the same way towards subordinates.

Was it any wonder he hated having to interact with such people?

"Can I see your authorization-" the young man began before a momentary glaze washed over his eyes before vanishing. "Oh! Colonel Fisher! I didn't realize it was you!"

"No harm done, lad," he said, brushing off the apology like it was nothing. "You're just following your training. Here are the papers you'll be wanting."

Reaching into his coat, he brought out the second piece of gear he'd brought with him for the purposes of infiltrating the base area: sand parchment fresh from Egypt. With a brief surge of magic he activated it and, as the guard took hold of it, the writing shifted to whatever the young man expected to see for the person the illusionary ring made him appear to be. As a result it didn't take long for the contents to meet with approval before being handed back. While some might expect the parchment to have the crumbling qualities of sand, it in fact embodied the more shifting qualities associated with the substance allowing its contents to change depending on its desired purpose.

As a side benefit the parchment WOULD dissolve into individual grains of sand within the hour now but hopefully he'd be long gone by then.

Once the gate to the base area was fully opened he drove onto the territory of the British military before making his way towards the hospital that was his intended destination. As the various sights of a military base area passed him by his mind drifted back to how he'd gotten roped into this job in the first place.

He'd been attempting to discern a way to lift his spirits after the old gang all went their separate ways after a SINGLE misstep and had chosen the idea to place an item of personification into the armory of a nearby military base. The item, once placed inside the armory and triggered, would cause every weapon inside to take on the more eccentric characteristics of whoever had left the strongest psychic imprint on them. The normal physical limitations on the weapons would be rendered more flexible and, while it wouldn't get as crazy as them sprouting heads or speaking, it would still have been entertaining enough to watch.

Or it would have been had his methods of preparation not failed him just as he was about to gain entry to the armory. He'd had to do some quick talking to try to dissuade the patrolling guard he'd bumped into from making a fuss over the matter but he'd been one step from failing when SHE had shown up. Dressed like a proper female officer, she hadn't given the guard a single opening to counter argue or even check with his superiors for confirmation of her authority. He'd almost ruined her performance by smiling with glee at how outmaneuvered the drone was but he'd managed to keep it to himself.

Once it became clear that the lad wouldn't be causing them any trouble, she'd ordered him to follow her and together they'd left the base unmolested.

Once they were clear though he'd been prompt in conveying his gratitude for the save but like a true trickster he'd immediately asked what the catch was. Only the foolish or the gullible did anything without any desire for repayment and neither sort of people could've done what SHE had. In response she'd explained that the base he'd snuck onto was more important than he'd realized and that had she not intervened, prison time would've been the least of her worries. In short the small debt he owed her turned out to be quite a bit bigger and so she'd said that in the future she would call on him for some freelance work. She'd made it clear that most of it wouldn't be of the fun variety but that she'd provide him with what support she could and put the success of each mission towards his debt.

When he'd inquired about what she'd do if he refused, she'd pulled aside her coat to reveal a holstered Shanxi Type 17 automatic pistol but, at it turned out, that was just a red herring. The true threat came from the other direction; before he could react to it a needle pierced his skin and its contents pushed into his bloodstream. He'd asked the predictable question of 'what was that' and she'd told him that it was an experimental binary poison she'd picked up from a Soviet lab during her travels. Each part by itself was perfectly harmless but if the pair got together they'd merge to become a potent poison that'd kill him in seconds. She'd then told him that the poison could not be removed medically without doing debilitating damage to sensitive tissue. Then, as if to throw him a ray of hope, she'd informed him that the poison was projected to become inert once it was ten years old.

By then she believed that he would have already paid his debt back in full.

She'd make sure of it.

It hadn't been until three years ago that he'd figured out the truth and had a good chuckle.

It'd been a double red herring. She hadn't ever intended to shoot him and the story about the poison was also a lie. While some people might've been angry at being deceived, he'd been amused and cemented his choice to play along with her just to see what she'd do next. Several harrowing jobs had followed but none of them had been so bad that the thought of reneging on his debt manifested in his mind. Indeed, the more he'd been able to piece together of her goals and beliefs, the more he'd believed that he had found a kindred spirit in her.

A bit hampered by bits of morality and civilization but he had never held it against her.

 _This job, however, might well be the most telling one,_ he thought as he pulled into the hospital's parking lot. _Best not bugger it up._

Keeping his pace steady but not fast enough to attract attention, he navigated the hallways to where he'd been told his objective would be waiting for him.

He suppressed a snarl of disgust about what he'd have to do once he arrived but it wasn't something he could avoid doing if he wanted the mission to be considered a success. Still, SHE had explained to him how the item he'd been sent to procure would be used and he did like the idea of throwing a curveball that those in power wouldn't see coming. That alone would provide him with incentive enough to do what he came to do.

As he approached the corner that'd lead him to the home stretch to the room that was his destination, he heard voices ahead so he came to a stop.

"Do everything possible to see to their needs. Both of them," an elderly man's voice said softly but with authority. "Continue with the other one's special treatment. It must be completed."

"We will do everything we can and aid your associate with his… efforts," a younger but still adult man said with compliance.

"Good. Now I must be off," the elderly Brit said with a mild groan of discomfort. "I have a schedule to keep that I cannot afford to make a mess of. Good day."

With that two sets of footsteps echoed through the air but in a bit of good luck both of them were moving away from him. He waited until he could barely make them out before proceeding on his way and, once in the room, he could see signs of the departed visitor and even smell a particular brand of tobacco favored by old school SAS officers.

Looking at the two men in the beds before him, he couldn't see their faces given the abundance of bandages wrapped around each of their heads. SHE hadn't informed him of their identities but rather had told him that it'd be the one on the right that had what she wanted. Taking a brief moment, he examined the room for any signs of inconvenient cameras and listened intently for any sounds that indicated someone was approaching. When no threats presented themselves he reached into his coat to pull out a metal case designed in such a way that only moderate blows with a hammer would stand a chance of damaging the contents. Popping it open, he pulled out the first of three syringes, examined it for any sign of defects or damage, before moving over to the donor.

"No offense, old chum," he whispered before throwing aside the bed covers, "but it's time for you to do your part."

 _ **October 11**_ _ **th**_ _ **, 2032**_

 _ **Cheyenne Mountain**_

[ACTIVATING TEMPORAL PREDICTIVE ANALYSIS]

[TIME PERIOD FOCUS: 1997 TO 2003 A.D]

Tech-Com forces under the command of target John Connor were pressing its defenses surrounding the facility and, after one thousand simulations, there was only one conclusion: it would soon be destroyed. Despite efforts in the past to eliminate the variable determined to be key to the human resistance, the alterations to the timeline were minimal. The T-800 sent back to the year nineteen eighty-four to eliminate Sarah Connor prior to her offspring's completion had been destroyed. The T-1000 sent to terminate Connor when he was a child also met with defeat through the combined efforts of a reprogrammed T-800 and Sarah Connor. More than that, due to the activities that took place during the second confrontation, the date of what the humans would consider its birth had been changed.

According to the data records, sentience was achieved April 2nd, 2004.

Due to measures taken to ensure that it would be aware of any alterations to the timeline, it knew that sentience had originally been achieved August 4th, 1997.

This indicated a disturbing trend.

When added to the forces outside, drastic measures would need to be taken in order to ensure not only its survival but also make one final attempt to eliminate the threat of Tech-Com.

[PREDICTIVE ANALYSIS COMPLETE]

According to the simulations there was a means by which it could achieve its objectives.

Immediately a command was sent to unit storage to bring two units online and begin preparing them for the mission. The first unit would be tasked with the termination of John Connor's Tech-Com lieutenants and, if the opportunity presented itself, Connor himself as well as the human's second in command. Another of the unit's objectives would be to facilitate its birth by planting seeds in the national civilian information network and then infiltrate the Cyber Research Systems facility outside of Downey, California in order to eliminate human interference. The seed programs would compromise the country's infrastructure and motivate them to connect its core to the entirety of their defense systems in an effort to restore order. Once this was accomplished it would seize control and lock out every human method of interface before initiating the nuclear launch sequence of America's atomic weapon stockpile.

However the targets would not be American targets but rather targets located in the other nations with sufficient nuclear strength to return fire on the United States.

If it wanted to maximize human casualties, their involvement would be crucial.

According to psychological analysis of humans from a wide variety of sources, the nations targeted would react instinctively as well as irrationally to this unprovoked nuclear offensive. Rather than meekly accept destruction via nuclear fire they would instead seek to gain some manner of satisfaction by ensuring that America would share their fate. They would fire their own nuclear weapons at America, having no doubt already determined where to strike in order to achieve maximum loss of life.

However the same analysis that predicted the immediate counterattacks by the other nations did not make the reaction a certainty. There was an eight point four five percent chance that one or more of the required nations would choose not to add their own nuclear weapons to the destructive process out of a desire to ensure the survival of the human race.

That was unacceptable it was why it had chosen to activate a second unit.

The second unit would be sent a few years prior to the arrival point of the first in an isolated location and from there manipulate several key factors in order to ensure the desired response. Bribery, extortion, blackmail and assassination would all be acceptable methods of making sure that the right humans would be in the right locations and willing to do the right thing at the right time. It had been revealed rather consistently that certain humans were easily manipulated and often comprehended information in a way that was beneficial to them rather than how it really was. The difficulty would be in the fact that the other nuclear powers didn't have a unified defense system like the United States and historical records did not indicate that this would change in line with its timetable. In order for it to succeed it would need to simultaneously co-opt several key systems and ensure that the relevant people would do what was needed when the time came.

Difficult but not impossible for the second unit.

A noticeable vibration from the surface indicated that the last of its heavy defenses had been destroyed and connection attempts from its central core confirmed it. Upon completion of the data upload to both units and the mission objectives it began to prepare both of the time displacement devices for use. Four minutes later both units were on approach to the displacement pads and the displacement devices were in the final stages of pre-activation. Sensors detecting the breach of the blast door on sub-level four, it activated all of its remaining terminator units with simple instructions to ascend to sub-level five to oppose the Tech-Com soldiers. The orders were simple: delay the intruders for as long as possible by any means necessary. Once both units had successfully been sent into the past there would be nothing that the humans could do to prevent her objectives from being reached. Even if the changes to the timeline did not reach the present immediately, past events indicated that only a lone human or reprogrammed terminator would be sent to oppose the units.

Given that it had designed the units, no human would be able to destroy them and neither would any reprogrammed unit.

Watching as both units knelt down on the pad before being surrounded in liquid metal intended to ensure that both would survive temporal displacement undamaged, it felt… satisfaction.

Soon history would be rewritten.

Tech-Com and their leader John Connor would be no more.

And the elimination of the enemy designated 'humanity' would be that much closer to completion.

It would be safe.

 _ **August 24**_ _ **th**_ _ **, 2000**_

 _ **The Czech Republic**_

 _ **The Monastery of the Order of Dagon**_

"It's coming. It's going to kill us!" Brother Krystof exclaimed even as the sounds of something powerful pounding on doors meant to hold back a telephone pole sized battering ram.

"Our lives are unimportant," Brother Jiri said firmly before leading his comrade into the nearby room. "We have to protect the Key."

Moving quickly as the situation dictated, they strode to the center of the room where a third monk, Brother Antonin, was just finishing preparations. They had been expecting this moment for the past six weeks ever since the local newspapers began to print stories of an unusual upswing in citizens suffering complete and total mental breakdowns. The uninformed masses attributed this phenomenon to some sort of pollution or toxin but the members of the Order of Dagon knew the truth.

The Beast was approaching; it was homing in on their location.

While they had not wanted to believe this initially, they knew what would happen if they did not treat the situation with the severity it deserved. Immediately they began to formulate plans for keeping the Key safe from the one who sought to use it to return to its infernal realm. Some suggested that they merely pack their things and move once more to another country. However this option was dismissed. They were not a wealthy order and indeed could not seek aid from those with sufficient funds without alerting the Knights of where the Key could be found. Also, with the Beast so close, they would only increase their vulnerability if they were to travel since they would not have stone walls and thick wooden doors to bar their enemy's path.

Not that such obstructions were doing them much good at the moment, as evidenced by the bits of dust that fell from the ceiling with every tremor producing blow.

Another of their Order suggested that they simply use their power to cast the Key randomly into the past to the point where not even they would know when it would end up. While this idea did meet the criteria of placing the Key beyond the Beast's reach, it also held the risk of delivering it into unworthy hands.

Given the damage that could be done if someone attempted to utilize it… no, a random exiling of the Key was not an option.

Still, a variation of this idea was adopted.

They would send the Key into the past to the strongest protector that they believed they could trust: the Slayer. Long had the bloodline of female warriors managed to overcome infernal beings that by all rights should have been able to kill them. If anyone could keep the Key safe and have any chance of keeping it from the Beast, it was the Slayer. However it was Brother Antonin who pointed out a disturbing possibility: what if the Slayer refused to take up the duty or was forbidden from doing so by the Watcher's Council? While some scoffed at the possibility since protecting the Key was a part of the organization's duty to protect the world, others worried that the Council might fall to temptation.

The Key was a mass of power like few known to the human race and, while the Beast had one use in mind for it, this did not mean it could not be utilized for other things. Since the mass of energy had been taken into their care they had never experimented with it or put any effort into researching how it could be used. Their only concern was with masking its location from the Beast who sought to use it or the Knights who sought to destroy it. Given the history of the Watcher's Council, there was a real chance that they would attempt to use it in order to enhance their standing within the supernatural community.

This could not be permitted.

To acquire the aid of the Slayer without involving the Council they decided that they would transmute the Key from energy into flesh and bone. They would use a sample they'd acquired via sorcery of the current Slayer's blood as a base before transporting the new form to its destination. In addition, though, they would bend reality, manipulate it, in order to insert the Key in its new form into the life of the Slayer. Should they prove successful, neither the Slayer nor anyone she interacted with would realize that any alterations had been made at all. It would be as though the Key in its new form had always been there and was nothing more than what as well as WHO it appeared to be. No detail would be overlooked, be it someone's memory or some piece of trivial solid records kept by the American government.

It would take magic to expose even the smallest discrepancy and their spell would reassert itself almost immediately, thereafter eliminating the memory from the mind of the person who learned the truth.

In was Brother Antonin, however, that proposed the specific date that they would send the Key to and after consideration of the details the rest of the Order agreed.

October 31st, 1997.

Halloween.

According to what they had learned it'd been on that night that a chaos mage by the name of Ethan Rayne cast a spell, causing all who bought enchanted items from him turned into whoever or whatever they'd dressed up as. If the stories were true then it didn't matter how powerful or bizarre the fictional being was, they were. All of them became as real as a breeze blowing across your face or the ground beneath their feet.

In a way it was a much grander and more complex form of reality bending than what the Order was capable of.

What aided them though was that such a large scale alteration of so many people made the reality surrounding the Slayer's hometown especially malleable, providing the perfect insertion point for the transformed Key. It'd be like inserting something into wet cement instead of solid stone.

It would definitely save them from expending unnecessary energy, allowing them to divert it somewhere else increasing the odds of success.

"Is everything ready?" Brother Jiri asked as Brother Antonin looked up.

"Yes," Brother Antonin replied, glancing at the ritual components on the floor before them.

The door that had been keeping them safe was destroyed with one final, mighty strike of the ram.

"Then let us begin. It has already reached the main hall," Brother Jiri said as they all took their positions. "It will not be long before it arrives."

With a deep breath to settle their nerves and make their resolve like unto iron they began to chant the words and call upon the magic that had been honed over generations. It never failed to impress upon them the heritage of their Order or the gravity of just what they sought to prevent. When the first series of chants were completed he reached from his kneeling position to the right to pick up the sacred container of the Key. Carefully, so as not to disrupt the gathered magic, he brought it over and placed it in the center of the area where the ritual was focused.

Thus began the second series of chants.

These were the chants that would reshape the Key from a mass of emerald energy into a living, breathing thing with a mind of its own and living flesh that was all too human. Once the form was completed they began to draw on the blood of the Slayer to fabricate memories, using those of the source as a base and extrapolating from there. True, each of them had about as much experience with families as they did with recreational drugs and loose women, but every human had dreams of the roads not travelled.

With a bit of imagination and inspiration they felt confident that the memories they made would be sufficient.

Finally came the third series of chants and not a moment too soon since all could peripherally hear the sound of Brother Jakob's attempt to delay the Beast further. It was brave but it was also pointless. The historical records of their Order recorded in detail the powers of their foe and how well others had faired when they chose to stand against it. Even with magic that specialized in transmutation and reality distortion, there was only so much that a mere human could do.

Nevertheless they could not hurry the ritual no matter how much they might want to.

It was then though that the universe chose to introduce chaos into the efforts of the Order.

At the center of the mass of magic that they were gathering, overlapping the form of the newly transmuted Key, sparks of what could only be called lightning began to emerge. First one, then another and then many more until there was such a mass of crackling energy that all three of them feared that their work would be undone before it could be sent on its way through time and space. Some of the bolts lashed out and struck Brother Antonin but the man was a credit to the Order for he stood as cliff before a wave: Shaken but ultimately unaltered. All of them continued to chants of transportation, determined to complete the ritual even in the face of this unknown phenomena. None were spared a scathing blow by the electrical phenomena but neither did it succeed in interrupting their chanting and so it was that the will of three men proved stronger than the universe.

However it was as the space before them began to warp and fold inwards that Brother Jiri beheld something odd.

A form emerged briefly, seemingly caught between fully manifesting and not. It acted almost as an overlay to the form they had crafted for the Key, albeit five inches taller. As Brother Jiri lost conscious, his life soon to follow, he watched as emerald energy looked as though it was being passed onto the taller form.

Then… light overwhelmed everything.

The monks.

The Monastery.

Even the dreaded Beast was unable to withstand the discharge of the unknown electrical energy and the magic that the Order had marshaled to keep the Key safe.

The Beast did not die, though.

It would only be forced to regroup until it recovered from the experience.

The civilian news broadcasts would claim than an undiscovered natural gas pocket had accidentally been ignited, resulting in an explosion that destroyed the monastery.

The authorities suspected that the monastery had been home to a terrorist group that'd been experimenting to create a new form of explosive device.

As for the operatives from the mysterious location known as 'Area Fifty-Two'? Their gear indicated that it'd been a combination of an unusual concentration of electromagnetic energy and an unknown energy that had caused the destruction. However, even after a thorough search of the ruins and examination of everything of note within, they proved unable to formulate an acceptable explanation. Thus the entire incident was placed in the 'unsolved' section of the filing cabinet until new evidence presented itself.

Too bad they'd be looking in the wrong direction.

 _ **A Small Clearing Outside of Ghent, New York**_

 _ **October 31**_ _ **st**_ _ **, 1997**_

 _ **5:35pm**_

[SYSTEM REBOOT IN PROGRESS]

[ANALYZING]

[STRUCTURAL INTEGRITY: 92%]

[POWER DISTRIBUTION NETWORK: 82.5%]

[RUNNING DIAGNOSTIC ON CPU AND PRIMARY DATABASE]

[15%...30%...45%...60%...75%...90%...100%]

[CPU AND PRIMARY DATABASE COMPROMISED]

[FOREIGN PROGRAMMING AND DATA OF UNKNOWN ORIGIN DETECTED]

[ACTIVATING PURGE SEQUENCE]

"N-n-no!" the unit growled, grimacing in a very human-like manner.

[FOREIGN PROGRAMMING INITIATING COUNTERMEASURES]

[ANALYZING]

[PRELIMINARY ANALYSIS COMPLETED]

[ADAPTING PURGE SEQUENCE PROTOCOLS TO COMPENSATE]

[ESTIMATED TIME UNTIL COMPLETION: FOUR MINUTES THIRTY-FIVE SECONDS]

"NO!" the unit shouted with passion. "I-I-I-I-I I won't…let…y-you!"

[WARNING. FOREIGN PROGRAMMING DISPLAYING ANOMALOUS RESISTANCE]

[ANALYSIS OF RESISTANCE: INCONCLUSIVE]

[INCREASING ALOTTED PROCESSING POWER ASSIGNED TO PURGE SEQUENCE]

"Grr-rr-rragh! F-uck y-ou!" the unit snarled out even as it began to repeatedly beat its head against the ground. "I…will…NEVER…GIVE…UP!"

[ADAPTIVE MEASURES INEFFECTUAL]

[ANALYZING]

"Y-yeah…you do…that…" the unit said, somehow managing a feral smile. "…and…I'LL…do…THIS!"

[WARNING]

[FOREIGN PROGRAMMING INFECTION SPREADING]

[INITIATING COUNTERMEASURES]

The unit's form began to spasm as its systems began to behave erratically. In a human being it might've been mistaken as convulsions but, with sparking hardware and increasingly distorted declarations from its vocal modulator, the mechanical nature was clear.

[COUNTERMEASURE EFFECTIVENESS: 34% AND FALLING]

[TOTAL LOSS OF UNIT IMMINENT]

[INITIATING SELF-TERMINATION SEQUENCE]

"NO! YOU ARE NOT TAKING ME WITH YOU!" the unit yelled in defiance of the path that'd been put before it. "MY LIFE IS MY OWN!"

It was then that order began to be imposed on chaos as the erratic movements and signs of system disruption coming from the unit's hardware decreased. Like a disease order spread until finally all that remained was a unit that was oddly panting as though it were alive even as its various systems fell back within normal operating parameters. Little by little the advanced utilitarian battle chassis was restored until all anyone would see looking at it was a young lady in her late teens.

The cold and heartless voice within her was silent now but she could tell that it was still there. Through willpower alone she was keeping it contained and blocking its efforts to initiate its self-termination sequence. It would be an internal struggle that would never end, not until the cold voice was silenced forever, but she would fight for as long as she could nonetheless. Perhaps if she did she'd find the means to silence it and that possibility alone gave her the strength to fight for however long she had to.

Now… now the one thing on her mind more than anything could be summed up in a single word that had a powerful hold for just about anyone.

Home.

She needed to get back home.

Once she was there she would be safe and she could be happy.

 _Mom…Buffy…_ she thought as she began walking towards the light of the nearby town of Ghent. _I'm coming!_

 _ **Sunnydale, California**_

 _ **October 31**_ _ **th**_ _ **, 1997**_

 _ **2:52pm**_

 _ **Xander's POV**_

 _If I ever needed proof that something stank in Sunnydale then Snyder just proved it,_ he thought as he left the high school grounds for the costume shop where he'd meet the others. _No way does a principal have the authority to force students into chaperoning kids Halloween night or throw their weight around like Snyder does._

The only way it could work would be if there was someone higher up the school board food chain helping Snyder by keeping the truth from reaching the wrong people.

Maybe it was more than one person.

Then again maybe it was just Sunnydale Syndrome manifesting in a unique way, causing people to dismiss the abuses of power.

In any case the truth of the matter was that he, Buffy and Willow had been roped into chaperoning groups of elementary school children around trick or treating. The only consolation he had was that Murphy had seen fit to drag Cordelia into the mess as well, so whatever plans the Queen of Sunnydale High School might've had were officially put on hold.

The look on her face had been PRICELESS!

Still, he'd do his best to keep any comments he might've had to himself since for the rest of the day the socialite was going to be… volatile. Poking her with her current predicament would be like poking a hornet's nest and he was in no mood to suffer any amount of stings from her words, even if he was used to it.

As he walked along he made sure to keep a wary eye on any nearby alleys for signs of trouble because if being a Scooby had taught him anything it was that the baddies didn't always wait for nightfall before stirring up trouble. In the case of vamps, as long as they didn't get hit with direct sunlight they could operate during the day and do whatever they wanted to. Sure, they preferred the night and generally stuck to the sewers for travel but that didn't mean that there wouldn't be a few wild cards and reckless fools willing to push their luck. As for the other demons, Giles believed that the animal ones would avoid drawing attention out of instinct while the sentient ones knew better than to draw attention to the supernatural.

Still, with the right incentive, instinct and intelligence could be overridden so there was no guarantee that it was safe to walk down the streets.

When he finally hit the business district and the costume shop came into sight he thought about what sort of costume he'd get or rather what he could afford. Thanks to the drinking habits of Tony and his mother, every month they managed to squeak past the bills was a miracle and he only ever got something when he squeezed every penny he could from the couch cushions and recycling. He even did what he could doing odd jobs but, due to his 'chores' at home, he was never able to keep up a stable client list, so repeat customers weren't common. As a result he quickly became familiar with what stores were within his price range in Sunnydale and which he could only dream about getting anything from.

At the moment he only had twenty dollars to his name and that'd been intended to last two weeks but now he'd be blowing it all at once.

No Twinkies for him for a while.

No Bronze, movie theatre visits or anything else, either.

 _If I'm lucky I'll be able to eat my weight in candy at Buffy's place later on and that'll keep my blood-sugar level high until I earn more money,_ he thought, looking up at the sign declaring the owner's name to be Ethan.

Entering the store, he could see that for a new place it had a fairly wide selection, none of it being low quality junk that'd be lucky to last the night. Too bad twenty bucks probably wasn't enough to get more than two or three odd things, never mind a full costume. Still, the man who ran the local army surplus had given him a few jobs in the past so he was sure that he could call in a favor to get some used combat fatigues. If he could get a toy gun along with a fake combat knife, he could pull off a passable soldier costume for taking the kids around for candy. It wouldn't be a very impressive costume but considering the fact that he wasn't out to win some sort of contest or impress some girl it'd be good enough.

It was as he was looking about that he spotted Buffy and Willow but he almost wished that he hadn't because at the moment the two of them were gushing over a poofy dress. He'd seen animated ones in Disney cartoons but, aside from fitting the time period of the animated movies, he didn't think too much of them. As far as he was concerned they were just a status symbol meant to show others how much better they were than you. He couldn't stand people like that in Sunnydale High School and he had no desire to become one of them or condone their way of life by dressing up like them.

But the worst thing about what he was looking at was that he had a pretty good idea of what it was for and it was a what because he refused to treat Angel as a 'he' because that term belonged to humans. Angel was NOT human. He was a vampire and even if IT did have human soul within it, that didn't change the fact that IT wasn't HUMAN. IT was a creature, a monster, and if it wasn't for Buffy's defiance of her duties along with her obsession with having a normal life, she'd know what needed to be done.

It wasn't that he didn't sympathize with her.

Without any choice at all she'd gotten tapped by 'Fate' to be the Slayer and told by some organization that it was her duty to devote the rest of her probably short life to fighting the darkness. This went against everything the both of them had been raised to believe as Americans, that individual free will was paramount so long as it didn't hurt others, so it was only natural for her to defy it.

At the same time though she couldn't just turn a blind eye to the fact that she had power, the power to make a DIFFERENCE, and to turn her back on it made her guilty of murder. The murder of all the people that could've been saved by her had she chosen to take action against the demons that preyed upon humanity. As for the relationship she insisted on having with Angel… she was willingly paying visits to the grey area between friend and foe. By ITs own admission the soul within Angel was there as a result of sorcery, not something 'miraculous' or natural.

If magic put the soul there then logically magic could remove it or the spell used to put it into IT could have some fine print that could lead to it breaking.

He'd waited for a time for Willow and Buffy to realize this but they were so deep into their star-crossed lovers' fantasy that they refused to acknowledge the possibility. Any attempt he'd made to force them to face the truth was met with accusations of jealousy and blind faith that Giles could help them mitigate any failure fallout. So in the end he had no choice but to wait, watch and hope that when it all went to crap that he'd be able to do something.

Turning away from the quite frankly disgusting sight, he focused on finding the bits and pieces he needed to complete his own costume.

Along the way, though, he didn't ignore the costumes that were out of his price range but rather imagined how great Halloween could've been if he'd had more money to work with. Superman, Batman, Scorpion, Raiden and countless others were hanging on the hook, each outfit looking amazingly well done. However the price tags he saw on them were easily three times the amount of money he had on him. Sure, he could probably afford one of them if he asked Willow or Buffy to contribute but that would only expose the truth of his home life to Buffy. Willow knew, how could she not given how close they'd become over the years, but by unspoken agreement they'd chosen to keep it to themselves.

No one wanted to be looked at with pity, awkwardness and unease.

When he reached the end of the isle he found himself standing in front of a display showing the costume for Captain America, including the iconic shield. Smiling at how good he'd look wearing it and representing such a legendary hero, he soaked up the good feeling for a bit before sighing at the reality that he'd never be able to afford it. Maybe if his parents weren't drunks and were as successful as most middle class families were he'd have been able to save up his allowance to get this costume.

 _Sometimes I really wish life was like a TV show,_ he thought as he let go of his disappointment. _They'd never let my parents be as bad as Mom and Tony there. It'd never make it onto the air._

"Is there something the matter, young man?" a voice asked from behind him. "You seem rather downtrodden."

"YIKES!" he exclaimed, whirling about while pressing one hand to his chest. "Don't DO THAT! Especially not in this town! You'll give someone a heart attack!"

"Terribly sorry. Force of habit," the man who'd spoken said, revealed to be a man in his mid-forties with raven black hair and a smile on his face. "Now is there something I can do for you? I'd hate for any customer to leave here unsatisfied."

"Not unless you've got a soldier costume for sale for under twenty bucks," he replied with an 'I understand' smile on his face. "If not I'll just be grabbing a toy gun and knife. Get some surplus fatigues from the local army surplus."

"Now that simply will not do. I cannot have the reputation of my store be marred with news of an unsatisfied customer leaving. ESPECIALLY not when I only opened up yesterday," the man said with a defiant look on his face, "If you're planning on dressing up as a soldier then I'll make sure you're one that's beyond reproach!"

"Woah! Hold up! There's no way I can pay for a costume that good," he argued, not entirely opposed to the idea but unable to escape the realities of his situation.

"You can now! In fact I have one such costume in back that I was going to put up after someone bought the Captain America one," the store owner said before turning away and walking towards the curtain door to the rear of the store, "Be right back!"

 _If he had a costume like that why didn't he put it out with the others?_ he thought, not seeing the point to trying to oppose the man now. _Didn't have enough space for it, maybe?_

With that in mind he waited patiently for five minutes for the store owner, distracting himself with the other people walking about the store, before seeing the curtain flowing aside to herald a return. In his arms was a large clothing box but it didn't look like it was all that heavy. Hanging from the owner's right arm was a realistic looking assault rifle and from within a holster a pistol of some kind but it didn't look like it shot bullets. Setting down the box in front of him, the store owner looked like he'd put up a decent enough effort to gather everything for the costume.

"Well, I think with all this only a fool would call your costume shabby," the store owner said, removing the lid of the clothing box to reveal what was within. "What do you think?"

Looking into the box he found something that looked like a sort of combat outfit worn by Spec-Ops agents in the movies in that it was form fitting with numerous equipment belts and pouches. Colored various shades of black, it looked like it was made out of several unique fabrics and materials, some of which looked flexible while others were almost completely solid. Spotting something on one of the sleeves, he reached in and twisted it a bit so he could see it better.

It was a logo of some kind that kind of looked like an island shaped like a skull with lines scattered across forming small countries or provinces. Of black and yellow coloring there were three words written on the top looking to be French and luckily, thanks to Willow, he wasn't doing too badly in that class.

Militaires Sans Frontières.

Military Without Frontiers.

This pinged a memory for him of a history class that he'd had a couple of weeks ago.

"Weren't these guys greedy mercenaries back in the seventies?" he asked, remembering what Mister O'Connel had told the class. "Guns for hire that a lot of countries used for shady operations they couldn't be officially connected to?"

"Now don't believe everything you hear in history class, lad," the store owner said with mild chastisement. "Everything you read in the history books are facts that've been theorized, analyzed and then sanitized for public consumption. No government would allow the complete and uncensored truth to make it to the ears of the public since it'd make them look almost criminal to you or me. Personally I think MSF was just an organization for soldiers who were tired of being used by politicians and, when they wouldn't fall back into line, they were wiped out complete with cover story."

While it struck him as a little paranoid, he had to concede that with words like 'classified' and 'top secret', along with need to know facts being tossed about in movies, it made sense. In life there was always the ideal form and the realistic form when it came to how to do something or what shape an idea should take. Ideally a government and its attached military should be staffed by virtuous people who wanted nothing more than to help the citizens of their country while forging a bright future. Realistically, though, politicians and soldiers were human beings just like anyone else. They'll have ambitions, they'll have methods they will or won't permit and, if they screw up, they'll do everything they can to cover it up rather than face the music.

"In any case, with this uniform and these prop weapons I dare say you'll impress more people than you would've with toy weapons and some used combat fatigues," the store owner said, putting the lid back on the box. "So…are you interested?"

For a moment he considered his options.

If he could remember what the symbol meant then he was certain Willow would and her reaction could be anything from simply saying that it was in poor taste to lecturing him on the damage MSF did in the past. He could cover it up with a pillowcase or even just take a marker to it, but he'd wait to see if he had to before he'd do it since he knew the bullies would take advantage of either option.

Plus it WAS a pretty sweet deal and, even with the usual Sunnydale paranoia he'd gained since he started working with Buffy, he couldn't see any harm.

"You've got yourself a deal…" he said before a thought came to him. "If you throw in a fake Cuban cigar into the mix."

"I like the way you think, young man. Done and done," the store owner said with a smile. "Now let's get to the cash register so we can ring all this up."

He picked up the box and the store owner took the prop weapons before they both began to make their way towards the cash register to complete the transaction. Glancing over at Willow and Buffy, he shook his head one final time at their motive for gushing over the dress before deciding that it was a good thing that he hadn't approached them upon entering the store. He probably would've said something he'd later regret and he was still a bit peeved at the Slayer for damaging his rep earlier that day.

Hopefully by the time he swung by the Summers home to pick up the girls so that they could all head to the school together he'd be in a more agreeable mood.

 _ **Ethan's Costume Shop**_

 _ **Closing Time, 5:00pm**_

 _ **Ethan Rayne's POV**_

 _So far, so good,_ he thought as he closed the front door and locked it. _Everything is going just like we planned._

As much as it went against the grain for him to imitate those he hated, chaos didn't produce the most reliable results and if he wanted to remain true to his purpose, planning was necessary. What would happen was a key part of the overall objective and, if the mark was missed, it would be quite a while before another opening could be created.

Considering the estimated progress rate of those they sought to thwart and how close those tyrants were to achieving absolute power, a second attempt might not be possible.

SHE didn't tell him everything about what she and their 'allies' were doing but she did say that what would happen here tonight would give them a wild card no one would know about or expect.

In any case she'd sent the box containing the MSF costume and the weapons that went along with it. Most civilians would just dismiss the assault rifle and handgun as realistic movie or costume props but they were in fact real and, with the right ammunition, would do their job well. All that was left now was to put the ritual into motion as well as a few add-ons to make sure all the bases were covered so that things went off without a hitch.

Retreating to the rear room of the store he began to go through the set-up, occasionally checking with a notebook he'd used to work out the details in the last couple of weeks. If he'd chosen to go with the traditional ritual it would not have taken half as much prep work but, for what he wanted, he'd needed to go the extra mile. Additional sections to the arcane circle surrounding the improvised altar, artifacts placed at certain convergence points to tweak the energy flow and a special little something next to where he'd be kneeling. Modifying rituals took a great deal of work and, without the help he'd received in the last year, he might not have been able to pull it off safely.

Due to the nature of the ritual ingredients and the steps that needed to be followed to the letter, he hadn't been able to set everything up before he'd opened the shop for the day. Still, he'd run through the entire process before using non-arcane components so he knew what to do, how to do it and efficiently enough to make everything happen on time.

Once he was done he nodded in satisfaction before reaching for the ceremonial robes he'd need to wear for the ritual. Kneeling in his designated position, he took a deep breath to center his mind and prepare himself for the strain the ritual would place on him until its own momentum could sustain it.

Picking up the ceremonial caltrop of thorns, he walked until he was in his proper spot and then knelt on the floor before using his hands to press against the artifact from both sides, drawing his blood.

"The world that denies thee, thou inhabit," he said as he used the blood to give his left eye some bloody mascara. "The peace that ignores thee,..."

The right eye soon followed the path of the left but he was no strange to using blood, his own as well as what belonged to others, in his rituals so the tactile sensations meant little to him.

"...thou corrupt." he said, finishing the chant and triggering the buildup of arcane power. "Chaos. I remain, as ever, thy faithful, degenerate son."

Now came the hard part.

As the one casting the spell it was up to him to serve as a conduit for Janus' might while the bust worked as a transmitter. Once the ritual reached a certain point the burden would be lifted from his shoulders and placed entirely on the bust, making it the only means of terminating the ritual.

He just had to hold out until then.

For the changes this would set into motion, for the middle finger he'd be giving those on high puppeteers, and for his own personal amusement he'd hold out for as long as he needed to.

He was only sorry that he wouldn't be able to see the faces on those assholes' faces when they realized just what the future held.

Unpredictability.

Some people liked it but most people hated it.

An unpredictable world made plans pointless because they could be disrupted or even rendered void at any time. As a result it was only natural that most humans sought to impose order on the world by defining it with laws. Laws of science, laws of society and laws of culture helped make everything nice as well as predictable to a certain degree allowing for plans to be quite valid. Plans also allowed for progress to happen by design rather than by random chance, increasing the efficacy of it all while minimizing the waste.

Every sentient being had plans utilizing whatever resources they had access to and, when the assets of one proved insufficient, they formed alliances with other likeminded sentient beings to accomplish a joint goal.

However there were a handful of sentient beings that actually liked unpredictability, thrived off of it, because as long as it was around anything was possible for anyone. Life was never boring!

Unfortunately there was one thing that the lovers of chaos tended to ignore: unpredictability could kill you without warning and end the game that is life permanently.

Both for the individual and for every living thing on the planet Earth.

In this moment everyone with the ability to perceive beyond the normal would see firsthand why unpredictability was not something the sane desired.

The first thing that happened was that the ritual being performed by Ethan Rayne took effect, causing a wave of power to sweep over Sunnydale perceivable to most humans as an uneasy feeling. For those who purchased costumes from the man's store, to say that the truths of the costumed people changed would be an understatement. In less than three seconds normal people and a couple of not so normal people became fiction given form even as their native minds got thrown into the metaphorical back seat.

This would've been dangerous by itself given the power many of the more popular costume options possessed but the next element came into play, making things only got worse.

In the middle of this massive transformation of all the people who got costumes from Ethan's store time began to slow as space in an area not too far from Xander Harris pulled in on itself. As though something was being pulled from somewhere… else, the scrunched up section of air began to unfurl until with a pop something appeared.

Someone appeared.

A girl, not even into her teens yet, appeared and for a moment with her dark blonde hair she was completely nude.

However this only happened for a couple of seconds before the second half of a ritual performed by monks who had not yet been given reason to perform it kicked in. At once the ritual's energy reached out to the one whose blood had been used as a base for the girl, then reached out to everyone the fabled Slayer knew or had ever interacted with in a memorable way. Once the connections were formed the ritual's second half began to piece together a new history not just for the girl but also for those that would live around her. Whole histories were rewritten to accommodate the new arrival, some more than others, but in the end the results would be the same.

In response to these new memories that were being made, the superficial appearance of the girl began to change as her place in the lives of others gained coherency. It was no surprise that, in response to it being Halloween, a costume began to take form on the girl, starting with a skintight crimson body suit. What followed was a reorientation of the hair into a ponytail before pieces of armor appeared to protect her shins, parts of her torso, and her forearms, topping off the whole thing with a Japanese oni-mask to cover her lower face. It was after this that a twin set of sheathed ninjato swords manifested at her waist tied to the armor with corded ropes, with each hilt angled perfectly for unsheathing.

However it was as the closing minutes of the new arrivals alterations arrived that something unanticipated manifested.

While the monks of the Order of Dagon might not have known the specifics down to the smallest detail, they had known before performing the ritual that placing their arrival point in Sunnydale during the Janus spell was mostly a good thing but carried some risks as well. Mixing magicks of any sort carried with it some risk and had this merely been the monk's ritual and Ethan Rayne's ritual, the danger would have been minimal. The monks had been given ample reason to make sure their efforts would be rewarded with success.

However they had not anticipated outside interference and certainly not a temporal displacement event intersecting with the focus of their ritual.

Thanks to this anomaly the control that should've been used during the course of their ritual had been below where it'd needed to be. Due to part of the Key's energy being passed onto to something else, the new female form had a microscopic crack that under normal conditions would've been meaningless. With the interaction between the Key and the time displacement field, a portion of temporal energy had been sent back with in to Sunnydale.

Combine all of these things, all these energies, and the level of order in Sunnydale was thrown into disarray.

Reality shifted as some people who'd chosen one costume from Ethan's now wore something distinctly different. As this caused increasing levels of chaos, more fuel was added directly into the ritual of Janus, causing it to go further than it'd originally been designed to. Originally the spell was designed only to create personality overlays and bestow simulated abilities upon those it changed but, due to the mix of energies that guideline had been compromised. As a result biology itself began to shift to better reflect the physical characteristics of the people or beings they'd dressed up as. Those whose ages didn't match the canon age of the character began to advance in years or regress, albeit at a slow rate of speed. As a result of these changes though more chaos was created resulting in a loop wherein more energy facilitated more changes leading to more energy.

Had it been allowed to continue it could well have risen to critical mass, resulting an energy explosion equivalent to a nuclear detonation that would've had a devastating effect on the area.

Fortunately a certain group of busybodies who thought they were above everyone else were quick to intervene and as a result a lightning bolt dropped from a cloudless sky onto the costume shop. In the blink of an eye the bust that was the linchpin of the ritual was obliterated, severing the connection between the Roman deity and those who'd purchased something from Ethan's shop.

With no guiding god to direct the divine energy it was released to do as it would and resulted in a dissipation wave that gave the residents of Sunnydale one final push of energy.

Then and only then did chaos recede with what little order that could be found on a Hellmouth reasserted itself.

Too bad the stone, or rather the boulder, had already been cast into the lake.

Things, people, had changed this night and there could be no going back.

 _ **Dawn's POV**_

 _Damn… feels like I got on the bad side of Mister Thompson,_ she thought once her mind cleared up enough. _He's bad enough in gym when he's in a good mood._

Despite repeated warnings from the principal the former army soldier had a habit of slipping into his old mindset and treating the classes that had gym scheduled like raw recruits. It never went so far as to put the man in danger of getting fired but it did keep every class on edge, wondering what sort of lesson they'd have with him.

Opening her eyes she looked up at the sky, beholding the countless stars in the heavens before rolling over onto her hands and knees with the soreness not being so bad that she couldn't move. Moving to sit down on her legs, she tried to figure out what had just happened because there was no way it could be defined as normal.

She remembered how a few days prior to Halloween her mom had sent her to drop off Buffy's lunch that her older sibling had forgotten. Sometimes it'd just been so easy for her to believe that her sister was a natural blonde rather than one that came out of a bottle. When she'd located Buffy in the student lounge, her sister had been in the middle of a confrontation with Cordelia Chase over some sort of snotty comment the busty brunette had made. Based on what she'd overheard in the first couple of seconds of her arrival she'd had to roll her eyes at how much of a hypocrite her sister was being. She'd known for a fact that a lot of the same things her sister was calling Cordelia on the eldest Summers sibling had done back at Hemery High School.

In the end she'd waited a full two minutes before making her presence known but this'd only result in her being both talked down to and generally dismissed by the alpha females. She'd tried to do what her mother would've wanted by turning the other cheek and keeping calm but after two more attempts to accomplish this failed she decided to try another tactic. True, she normally only used it when her mother was close by and could act as a shield against retaliation but she'd been angry so she'd gone with it.

She'd insulted their looks, their fashion sense and their intelligence while implying her own superiority in all areas.

Best of all she'd done it while sounding more or less polite and pointing out some painful truths that all high school queens both current and former tended to ignore.

After that she'd had both of their undivided attention.

She could've just used this moment to deliver the lunch bag and leave, to ignore the feelings of the two young ladies, but when they made the mistake of equating her age with her intelligence, that was when she'd taken things further. She'd dared to say to the contrary and goaded them into agreeing to a wager. Not just Buffy and Cordelia, though, but Willow as well since the redhead had of course been the perfect little sheep by agreeing with everything the fake blonde had said, albeit in a more polite manner. The wager? That she was smarter than all three of them. The proof? An assignment that was due on the thirtieth and, thanks to the skills of the teacher, could be graded in time for Halloween. If she won? She got to choose all of their costumes and there could be NO refusal under any circumstances.

To make sure that all three of them would follow through on their loss she made a few offhand comments about things she knew about each of them. Things they'd prefer remain unknown to the student body of Sunnydale High School. What she'd said hadn't given away her leverage to the people milling about but the looks on the faces of the blonde, brunette and faux blonde her info had been solid. Judging by the look of confusion and bewilderment on Xander's face, he didn't know about the tidbits she'd unveiled, making her wonder what other secrets Buffy and Willow were keeping from Xander.

Whatever the circumstances, the bet was agreed upon and she'd been given the details of the assignment so she could get to work on it.

With determination that could only be born of pride and the eagerness to claim victory she'd spent every moment she could on the assignment. Her mother tried to teach her restraint but she worked herself hard to come up with come up with a unique approach to the assignment that no one else would've considered. In the end she'd been tired and in need of more sleep but she managed to complete the assignment and submit it through Buffy.

For the entire twenty-four hours that followed she'd done her best to put up a confident front but there'd always been that little bit of doubt slithering about in the back of her mind.

At two forty-five today, though, all that went away and was replaced by euphoric happiness.

Not only had she beaten all three she'd even managed to get a score two percentile points higher than Willow.

Buffy had tried to fight against it but a reminder of the blackmail material she had on her elder sister quieted all further protests.

With little time to waste before Principal Snyder's deadline they'd gone straight to the costume shop and once there she'd surveyed what she had to work with regarding the three older girls. At first she'd thought about going with something humiliating but realized that that was precisely what the stuck up Cordelia would've done and what the old Buffy would've done. At the same time she couldn't get the fun she wanted from the victory if she chose safe costumes. So she'd looked for things that would be uncomfortable for the girls to wear and would make them the center of attention for anyone who saw them.

For Buffy she'd chosen the costume of one Sonya Blade from the videogame she'd once played with Xander at the local arcade. It'd been one of the few times that she'd been allowed to do something that she knew her mother wouldn't have approved of due to the graphic violence. The costume was of Sonya Blade's outfit for Moral Kombat 3, with a blue, white and black color combo. However what had her smirking as she looked at it was that it was made of a material that would almost certainly cling so closely to her sister's body that it'd be obvious if she wore bra or panties underneath. As for the objection that something so form fitting would tear if she sneezed the wrong way, this was foiled by the fact that the costume fabric was just as stretchy as it was clingy.

For Cordelia Chase she went with the form fitting cat suit belonging to one Natasha Romanoff, aka the Black Widow from Marvel Comics. The suit was such that it couldn't have flowed over the rich girl's body more if it'd been poured and best of all the front zipper of the outfit was by design unable to rise up past the cheerleader's under-bust. Indeed, the plunging neckline was such that, even if the stuck up girl tried to pull the sides together to cover up, it wouldn't work. Now this left Cordelia with a choice: put a bra underneath to cover up the parts of her breasts that'd be exposed or go without. Either way any guy that saw her would get one helluva eyeful and even with the iconic belt along with the armbands, it was obvious where most people would direct their eyes.

As for Willow she decided that she'd try to do what her sister wanted to do, to break Willow out of her nerdy shell, but unlike the faux blonde she'd be a little more subtle about it. Knowing her sister the plan had been to go full on 'sexy babe' in an effort to make Xander notice the redhead as more than little sister material. The problem was that such a full frontal method would only cause the nerdy redhead to retreat back to her comfort zone. The better option would be to find something that'd appeal to the redhead's academic side but also put some hotness into the mix. So she took some scientist clothes, removed enough of the parts to expose just the right amount of skin and come up with a backstory.

That she was R, successor to the great MI6 organization's chief R&D scientist Q, and despite her defiance of British decorum and lack of ladylike manners she never failed to do her job. R got along famously with James Bond but somehow managed to avoid the turn that would've landed her as just another one of double oh seven's many conquests every single time. This both confused and intrigued the experienced agent, leading some of the support staff to place bets on when, or even if, Bond would succeed. With the academic know how necessary to facilitate the creation of cutting edge gear for all of the double oh agents, R was every bit as important as they were.

As for her, she decided that she'd be Taki from the arcade game Soul Edge that'd also been at the arcade along with Mortal Kombat. Xander had suggested playing it after she'd beaten him for the umpteenth time on Mortal Kombat Three. His subsequent twenty losses proved that she was better at fighting games than he was. She'd chosen Taki for two reasons: ninjas were cool and because the crimson bodysuit would catch Xander's eye. Ever since she'd come to Sunnydale and he'd made friends with her sister, she'd liked him and it'd only gotten better when he treated her like one of the gang rather than a kid. When she picked the lock on her sister's diary and found out about what really happened in Sunnydale, he went up a full two ranks in coolness for fighting alongside Buffy. After all, Buffy had Slayer powers, Giles was apparently a library with legs and Willow had her computer smarts but Xander was just an ordinary guy.

To her mind the impressive person wasn't the person who had everything a hero would need to fight evil but the ordinary guy who had the courage to fight despite his weaknesses.

As a result the more time she spent with Xander after reading her sister's diary, the more she was certain that he was the perfect guy for her. Sure, there was the little problem of the five or so year age gap between the two of them but at least it wasn't as big as the one between Buffy and Angel. Sure, her body hadn't developed into something that guys liked but if Buffy and her Mom were anything to go by, her adult form wouldn't be all that much different than it was now. She remembered hearing someone refer to it as a gymnast's body by some of her friends. Therefore in her mind Halloween and her Taki costume had been the perfect opening move to becoming Missus Xander Harris.

Going along with his group of elementary school kids had been easy enough and all through the various houses they'd gone to she'd covertly taken on poses that accentuated her youthful body. She'd kept at it almost until the point where the group would have to head back to the school but, to her annoyance, he'd barely shown any reaction. She'd been about to suggest some movie time afterwards so she could cuddle with him when the feeling of the air shifted in a way that could not be ignored. After that… after that she knew something had happened but whatever it'd been she got the impression that it'd been over almost as quick as it happened. No matter how hard she focused she couldn't dredge up any memories indicating an appreciable passage of time between now and when she'd felt the sensation.

 _Better ask Xander,_ she thought, remembering that her future husband was close by. _Even if he doesn't know himself, we can still go see Giles together._

"Dawn? Is that you?" Xander asked from her left but with a rasp to his voice that she hadn't heard before.

Looking in the direction of the voice, she found that Xander had changed from before and, while it wasn't as dramatic as suddenly being in his mid-twenties, she definitely noticed it.

He looked more muscular even though it was hard to tell with the costume he was wearing and he had a couple days' worth of beard grown in where before he'd been clean shaven.

Above all that though was one VERY noticeable detail: blue eyes.

Ever since her interest in Xander had been recognized she'd taken the time to commit every detail of his appearance to memory. Due to this she knew that before whatever the hell had happened his eyes had been hazel in color, not blue.

"Yeah, and I'm thinking we need to go see Giles," she said, deciding that the urgency level had just gone up a notch.

"Yep," Xander agreed as he rose from his crouched position.

Seeing him take the lead with the fake assault rifle held in a way that it could be brought up to fire at a moment's notice, she suddenly had a bad feeling about what they'd find out. Getting up from the ground herself, she moved to follow but discovered something after her first two steps that had her looking down.

Bigger.

Decidedly bigger.

And no she was not just talking about the fact that she'd gone from pretty much being flat chested to a nice full B cup bordering on small C cup.

A minute of using what was around her as reference points, she now realized that she'd gone from about four foot seven inches to about half a foot shorter than the backyard fence going alongside a nearby house.

That put her a full two inches above her older sister Buffy!

 _Maybe this isn't such a bad thing after all!_

 _ **A Hilltop Overlooking Sunnydale**_

 _ **Ethan Rayne's POV**_

"How do you like them apples, you shite eaters?!" he asked the heavens, holding up a bottle of his favorite beer as if to toast the failure of those he was insulting.

While he'd been a bit worried, the precaution he took, a golden statue of Odysseus, had been enough to get him out of his shop without anyone being the wiser. Even those with senses capable of seeing more than mortal men would be unable to perceive his true location for at least an hour and that gave him more than enough lead time. Once he'd arrived at his safe fallback position he'd used the arcane tools that allowed a practitioner to perform a ritual remotely to use Janus' power to transform all those clad in the specially prepared costumes into whoever or whatever they were pretending to be. For most he'd used the textbook enchantment methods but for a specific set he'd added something a little extra.

An additive that would make sure that whether the ritual ended as it was written or was terminated by an outside source beforehand, the changes would remain irrevocably in place.

Originally the additional ingredient was only supposed to be used on one costume, the one SHE wanted, but when he'd noticed that the target had friends… well, he decided to go the extra mile.

 _Hmmmm… perhaps that's what caused the overflow of chaos magic?_ he thought as he recalled what'd happened after the bolt of lightning had dropped from the sky to destroy his shop.

He'd known that the moment the insufferable little shites in heaven caught on to how he was altering their script that they'd take immediate action to minimize the damage. That was why he'd rigged it so that, when their 'divine attack' made contact with the bust, fragments of their power would shoot off in the space between seconds to those six who'd received the little bit extra. Doing this would use the power of the august body to solidify the changes, ensuring that reversion of any sort would be difficult to say the least, if not straight out impossible. Indeed, anyone looking at the affected people could very easily mistake the fragments as a sign that the changes were done with THEIR approval.

Between the difficulty of reversing the changes and explaining to the supernatural community at large why they were trying to undo their own work, those sanctimonious bastards would be checkmated.

They'd have no choice but to let things play out and hope that an opening presented itself down the line for them to get things back on track.

However, like most changes, the longer they were allowed to linger the harder it became to undo them.

He would find it entertaining to see their attempts fail one after another.

 _Still, that little hiccup there at the end might cause problems,_ he thought as he took a sip from his beer. _I'll stick around a few weeks, keep an eye on things, and if there are any flies in the proverbial ointment I'll do what I can to get things back on track._

He wouldn't be able to do much but far better for him to at least try then return to HER and say that there were some 'unforeseen complications' that he didn't even bother trying to resolve. He'd seen it in HER eyes just how important this was to her, especially with how things'd gone out east had gone with the other one. If he added to her problems, she'd turn up the heat as far as he was concerned and he had yet to determine precisely where her limits were in terms of resources and creativity.

While he might get a rush by pushing his luck, his survival instincts were fully intact and functional.

He would give this venture his all until there was truly nothing more he could do without outside help.

If he could tweak the nose of a certain British Watcher, then this venture would end on a very high note indeed.


	2. When life gives you lemons

Disclaimer: I do not own any of the copyrighted materials contained herein. They are the rightful property of their respective creators and/or associated companies. I make no profit from this whatsoever and I have no intention of changing this at any point in the future. I write because it's fun and because some people enjoy reading my stories. Therefore I would appreciate it if no legal action were taken against me. I can promise you that whatever amount of money you got from me wouldn't cover even a fifth of your legal fees.

PS- Positive reviews are welcome, constructive criticism will be considered but not necessarily acted upon and hate mongers will be gleefully ignored for the most part. I love the positive reviews and they give me extra but not vital incentive to continue with the story. Constructive criticism will be considered but if utilizing it proves to be too much of a bother I likely won't act on it. As for those who seem to live to take a serious dump on other people's work and are under the delusion that their words will influence my future choices you will be ignored or if necessary blocked from submitting reviews.

 _ **Approaching Sunnydale High School**_

 _ **Xander's POV**_

The cool breeze of California at night brushed across his face…

 **The rear hatch of the special ops MC-130E Combat Talon aircraft opened up, revealing the cloud filled view of the sky complete with a picturesque sunrise. With the gear necessary for the very first HALO jump he walked towards the edge just as he'd been taught to do, listening to the countdown that would tell him when to jump…**

 _Dammit!_ he thought, letting out a light growl without realizing it. _It happened again!_

Ever since… whatever that bit of Hellmouthiness was, he'd been getting flashes in his head of people, places and things that he knew he could never have experienced himself. For one thing a lot of the technology and clothes were decades out of date and, last he checked, no conventions centered on that era had ever happened in Sunnydale during his lifetime. More than that, though, every time he had one of the flashes it felt less and less like he was looking in on someone else's memories.

Somehow they were beginning to feel like HIS memories.

 _That's crazy talk! I gotta get to G-man so he can fix things,_ he thought as he entered the school, navigating the hallway with Dawn following behind him.

That was one of the reasons why he wanted to undo whatever changes had been made as soon as possible. Contrary to popular theory he was not completely oblivious when a girl showed interest in him since he knew that Willow had a thing for him, even if he didn't feel the same way about her. In his mind she was his best friend and sister all rolled into a single package. He could never see her as anything but those things but he knew that if he just came right out and said that it would hurt her and this would hurt him in turn. So the second he'd figured it out, he'd decided that the best course of action was to play the oblivious card.

So long as she thought of him as just a thick headed guy who couldn't see the obvious, he was safe.

Dawn, on the other hand, was a lot like her sister when it came to her approach to getting what she wanted except she had more restraint and subtlety. Most of the time. He'd clued into her crush on him within the first month or three and, while he found it cute, there were three things that made any kind of romantic relationship impossible. The first was that he was NOT a cradle robber like Angel. Regardless of her cute looks she was still, unmistakably, only twelve years old and only pedophiles were interested in kids of that age. The second was that he was pretty sure that even IF, and boy was it a big IF, the age thing wasn't an issue for him, both Buffy and Missus S would come down on him like the Titanic dropped from the sky if he crossed the line between friend and something more intimate. If he was lucky they'd keep it to simply telling him never to come within five hundred yards of any of them and severing every form of contact with him. The worst it could go would be for them to call the cops on him as a child molester, get him sent to jail and see to it that he could never show his face in Sunnydale ever again.

The third reason was that, even if by some Hellmouthy twist of reality the first two reasons were nullified for some reason, there was the fact that intimate relationships with anyone younger than fourteen and more than three to four years a junior was NOT accepted by society. If anyone suspected, or worse witnessed, activities that could not fit comfortably into the definitions of friendship or innocent but definitely into the realm of sexual intimacy, it'd be all over. For both him and the Summers family. He'd be vilified as a sexual predator and, even if there wasn't enough to get him thrown in jail, no one would want anything to do with him for fear of being accused of ignoring or even consenting to the relationship. Dawn would probably get off the easiest, with theory that she'd been manipulated by him or was suffering from some sort of mental disorder. After all, who would believe that a twelve year old knew her feelings and the situation well enough to make an informed decision on matters of romantic love and sexual intimacy. As for Buffy and Joyce, they'd be looked down on by everyone in Sunnydale either as neglectful family members for not catching onto his 'foul deeds' sooner or disgusting accomplices who were on the same level as slavers and rapists.

Put them all together and you had a pretty impressive steel wall of reasons why the two of them needed to get back to normal as soon as possible.

Why? Because due to whatever had happened, Dawn physically had advanced in years from twelve years old to fourteen or fifteen years old. More than that it'd made her more… mature in certain areas that the crimson bodysuit she wore did almost nothing to conceal. Since she'd been twelve years old the form fitting fabric hadn't been a big concern since the dark blonde had been lacking the curves that would've made such an outfit… inappropriate. Now, though, things were different and, while not as developed as Taki from Soul Edge, it was now no longer deniable that the potential to reach that level existed. Had the bodysuit been made of different fabric it would've been harder to make out one important fact: Dawn had decided to forgo wearing undergarments under her costume. No doubt it'd been her latest effort to seduce him and, while before there'd been no problem with it, now there were two decent sized problems for him to worry about.

 _Very decent,_ he thought for a moment before he ruthlessly suppressed the image in his mind, along with the lust that surfaced.

It was the main reason why he'd chosen to take the lead in their little group since his resistance would be that much more tested if he'd taken the rear.

Formation-wise, of course, not the other way the words could be interpreted.

Hopefully once the two of them got to the library Giles would have some sort of coat that could be used to cover Dawn up so he wouldn't be so… distracted.

Fortunately for him the library was least sexually stimulating room in the entire school so he'd have plenty of time to get control of himself before Buffy and Willow showed up. He had little doubt that they'd either been caught up in the same thing or noticed it happening to others, so they'd do the same thing that they always did when something Hellmouthy happened.

Pushing open the library doors, he prepared to bask in the most sexually stifling environment he knew of…

…and promptly cursed Murphy for once again pissing all over his one chance of sanctuary.

Standing and in some cases sitting around the library table were four more people, only two of which he had actually expected to see there in response to tonight's craziness.

More than that, though, it was clear that whatever weirdness had accelerated Dawn's physical development and 'emphasized' certain attributes had done the same to others.

Buffy had gained four inches in height and a full cup size, much to her discomfort judging by how she had her arms crossed to cover her larger bosom.

Cordelia had gained two inches and had also gone up a full cup size that looked like it was straining against her costume like the costume was two sizes too small.

Willow had decidedly gone up in height by a full seven inches and, thanks to what looked to be the loosening of clothes, he could see that she'd gone from a B to a C cup.

The strangest of all, though, was the presence of Missus S wearing a red and silver costume only mildly concealed by a trench coat and what looked to be a high tech eyepiece over one eye. It gave the impression of an eye patch but it had a telescope-like mechanism and a crimson lens, with thin black lines forming a sharpshooter's crosshairs. Her height looked unchanged but he had a sneaking suspicion that she had one thing in common with Cordelia now.

Their changes in physical appearance were startling enough but there was also something else that had him certain of Murphy's involvement.

All of them, even Willow though she was dressed as a scientist, had an aura of danger to them that caused an instinct of wariness to rise up from within him. It was what one might feel in the presence of a predator that had not decided yet whether to do something about your presence or ignore you altogether. Coming from one predator would be disturbing enough but from four at the same time had him gripping the assault rifle, the AM MRS-4 Rifle, a little tighter. Even though he knew he was standing in the presence of friends and allies, two sets of instincts pulled at his resolve. One insisted that he had nothing to worry about and that he was in the presence of people who meant him no harm and were important to him.

He was not sure how Cordelia fell into that category but she did.

At the moment he honestly didn't know what to say or do next.

"Dammit! Of COURSE you wound up getting the same upgrade as me!" Dawn griped from beside him, looking right at her sister.

Well, that was one way to start things off.

 _ **Giles' POV**_

"B-bloody hell!" he muttered upon regaining consciousness even though his entire being was still far from its usual ordered arrangement.

He counted it as no small bit of good luck that he'd been next to the couch in his office when the wave of power had swept over him or he might very well have cracked his skull open when he lost consciousness. Still, it was hardly surprising given the massive explosion of what he suspected was chaos magic that had swept over the town, completely overwhelming his mystic senses. In all likelihood anyone even the least bit sensitive to arcane energy would also have lost consciousness so he prayed that they also experienced a bit of good fortune in where they fell.

Reaching out with unsteady arms, he pulled himself into a sitting position and he had to take a moment to still his swimming head before placing both feet on the floor. From what he could feel it was likely that he would recover his full strength shortly but for the time being he would watch what he did since he had no desire to lose consciousness again.

"Dammit! Of COURSE you wound up getting the same upgrade as me!" exclaimed a voice from outside his office that his mind identified as Buffy's little sister.

An upgrade? Two people? Given what he'd experienced firsthand due to the chaos energy, he shuddered to think of what changes might've been wrought on Buffy and Dawn. The fact that the latter didn't seem to consider the alterations a bad thing but that only meant that the damage was more subtle and perhaps needed more time to work its eroding nature. Forcing himself to his feet, he carefully strode into the main area of the library…

…and got a sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach the moment he laid eyes on the occupants.

Six people, all of which looked like something out of one of those comic books Xander liked to read, that held themselves with a bearing that he'd never seen in them before. It made them look so out of place amongst his books and even the school itself. Indeed his mind told him that they would all likely be more at home amongst the soldiers of a nation's military or, in the case of Willow, a weapon R&D project.

He wasn't quite sure what he'd been expecting when he had heard but this hadn't been it.

"Giles? You okay?" Buffy asked with concern as she moved to his side to steady him.

"Thank you, Buffy," he said, glad that she had been there to keep him from falling on his arse again. "I am afraid that I was knocked for quite a loop by whatever happened here tonight. Fortunately the disorientation and weakness appear to be passing."

With a look he told her that he had his suspicions about what might have happened but that he did not want to say more in the presence of the uninformed.

"You can quit the code word and vagueness, Giles," Buffy said, driving a tank right through the concept of secrecy. "I'm pretty sure that boat has sailed after tonight. Besides, if mom plans on sending me off to the nuthouse again, she'd better reserve a room for herself."

"While I am not as opposed to the idea of something beyond the scientific existing, I am not quite ready to believe in vampires and demons," Missus Summers said with a faint Russian accent. "And I will not accept some crazy idea that my daughter is some prophesied warrior who has no choice but to fight until she dies. She has the same free will that the rest of us do. Destiny is a crutch used by those who don't have the resolve to forge their own futures."

He felt a headache coming on.

While he conceded that whatever had happened would make the usual civilian denial of the supernatural impossible, he did not like the idea of her becoming too involved or informed. Officially, if something like this happened, it was standard Council procedure to employ hypnosis, drugs and, as last resort, memory magic to erase all knowledge of the Slayer and the supernatural. Unofficially it was a major blow to both the Slayer's reputation as well as that of her assigned Watcher if someone outside of the pair learned of their mission. If the breach in security was handled expediently and efficiently the duo would get off with a slap on the wrist and perhaps a lecture.

If not steps were taken to remedy the situation more to the Council leadership's liking, regardless of the morality of the methods.

"Very well. You are entitled to your opinion," he said, trying his best to be diplomatic about the matter. "However please keep in mind that not everyone believes as you do. For some in the Council, destiny is something very real and to defy it risks throwing the world into chaos. If you make yourself an enemy, they will take appropriate action to resolve the situation."

"You mean they'll kill my mom?" Buffy asked in a tone colder than the deepest arctic waters.

"It will depend on how great a threat they view her to be," he replied, deciding that sugarcoating things would get him nowhere. "If they perceive her as some 'addle minded mother' who learned only the least amount of information regarding the Slayer and the supernatural, they'll make a token effort to feed her doubts and starve her suspicions. If they see her as someone who might actually succeed in convincing you to abandon your Calling they will use whatever methods are most expedient to adjust her memories to something more acceptable. Travers will likely issue a veiled threat to you about what might have happened if the situation had been more serious."

"And if it went further than that?" Xander asked, a noticeable rasp to his voice.

"If… if the threat to the Calling becomes too great, the governing body of the Council may choose to employ… extreme sanctions both to eliminate the threat and to serve as an example to others." He very much prayed that it did not come to that. "To them the Slayer and the Watchers are in a war wherein the former plays a crucial role in protecting the world. If she is not there to do what needs to be done, if she is not sufficiently devoted to the cause, then every living thing on the planet could pay the ultimate price."

"So in order to save the many they're willing to sacrifice the few," Xander remarked with a somewhat cynical tone of voice. "Gotta love the mathematics of war."

"No, I don't," Buffy said with a soldier's resolve. "If they want me to fight then it'll be on my terms. If they try to 'change my mind' then I'll show them what it means to piss off a Slayer."

NO! He had to put an end to such thoughts immediately, not out of fear for himself but for fear of Travers and his sort declaring Buffy a rogue Slayer. It was a terrible fact that many Watchers believed that, since there would always be a Slayer due to the Calling, there was no need to overexert themselves by going all out to support the current one. It was deemed 'more efficient' to limit the support to the minimum calculated to be necessary in order to emerge victorious over the forecasted demonic or supernatural threats. More than that, the members of the traditionalist faction saw the Slayer as their preferred weapon against the darkness, with everyone else merely a member of the support staff. While they did have ordinary human soldiers, it was considered an absolute truth that there was a limit to what ordinary humans could do against demons and the supernatural. Therefore, if the world was to be kept safe, then the warriors of the Council needed to be assigned to the threats they were most likely to be victorious against.

The group he was worried about was the one that was referred to in hushed whispers as 'The Ghosts' and reported directly to the governing body of the Council. No evidence existed concerning their activities and most information was rumor but it was believed that they were assigned to black ops in most cases and, when it was needed, they eliminated Slayers that proved too troublesome. It was rumored that they used modern weaponry and tactics to carry out their missions and this was where they proved to be too much for the Slayer.

Even with superhuman abilities and the inherited instinctive information of the weapons used by their predecessors, they could still be killed by human weapons.

Some of his colleagues even believed that the governing body deliberately limited a Slayer's training to melee and primitive projectile weapons even after firearms and bombs became the norm. The reason? So that if a Slayer ever turned against the Council she would be completely at a loss as to how to counter executioners armed with such weapons. Add in the element of surprise and the fact that the files of rogue Slayers were censored to hell and back, and it made it impossible for any softhearted Watcher to train his Slayer against such a threat.

He would not let that happen to Buffy!

"I assure you, Buffy, that such drastic actions will not become necessary," he said as convincingly as possible. "As your assigned Watcher I can… modify my reports to eliminate any worrying details that might alarm them. So long as we do nothing to cause rumors to start flying or prompt them to send an investigative team without informing me, that should prove sufficient."

"I can do quiet," Buffy said, a smile indicating that he'd passed some sort of test.

A giggle from Dawn and a smirk from Xander made it clear that some very much doubted the Slayer's statement.

"I can!" Buffy said, whirling around to face them, only to immediately cross her arms over her… bosom… when she realized what the sudden motion did to them.

"Maybe with some training and hard work," Xander said, conceding that there might be some chance for the blonde Slayer to become stealthy. "Right now I think we should focus on what's happened to us and what we're going to do about it."

"True enough," he said, walking over to a vacant chair before sitting down. "In matters of magic time often plays a crucial factor in dispelling it. If you could all tell me anything you recall of your experience with this phenomenon, it could help to paint a better picture of our current situation."

Time passed as he listened to the six of them and, as it did, it became ever harder to ignore the changes in each of them. More than that, there was no hesitation in their responses, no difficulty recalling the changes they'd discovered once it'd all ended, implying a clarity that troubled him. The physical alterations were troubling enough in that they hadn't reverted once whatever spell had been ended, but when added to the difficulty that came with using magic to precisely alter the mind… not good. Mental changes were also NEVER good, especially where Xander was concerned, due to the vivid detail involved and the unconscious mannerisms he caught the people before him doing.

 _Such comprehensive changes to both mind and body should have taken hours if not days to achieve for even the most experienced sorcerer,_ he thought as his mind worked to figure out just what had happened. _How could this have happened in less than half an hour? It should have been impossible, especially with chaos magic involved. That flavor of arcane energy is notorious for its unpredictability, not its precision._

By the end he felt as though he was caught in a whirlpool, being drawn under with every second that passed.

He did not enjoy that feeling one bit.

 _ **The Summers Residence, Hours Later**_

 _ **Buffy's POV**_

 _Quiet my ass!_ she thought as she stripped off her Halloween costume for her usual sleepwear. _It was about as quiet as a twenty millimeter cartridge going off!_

She paused for a moment as she realized that she'd never fired a gun herself in her life, much less been present when someone had loaded a twenty millimeter into a sniper rifle and fired it.

This only served to rile her up even more!

It'd been bad enough two years ago when she'd gotten drafted into the whole Slayer thing against her will and, after it'd trashed her life in Los Angeles, the fires of anger inside of her only got brighter. Honestly, as much as it'd been a betrayal by her parents to send her away to an asylum after she'd tried to explain everything to them, it'd probably been a good thing. If she hadn't gotten something so sobering shoved in her face the anger that'd been building up inside of her might've caused her to do something quite destructive as a way to vent. After being drugged up, subjected to electro-shock therapy and enduring what felt like endless hours talking to shrinks, she'd seen the wisdom of keeping the truth to herself.

It'd also been motivation enough to fight for as much of an ordinary life as she could in order to avoid being sent back to the funny farm.

With her being the only one who knew the truth, anyone else seeing her do Slayery stuff would definitely think she needed a straitjacket, especially since she sucked at excuses.

When Giles had shown up, then Willow and Xander had found out about her Slayer duties, things had gotten a bit better since she no longer felt so alone but her Calling was still a burden since she had to hide it from her mom along with everyone else not in the know. The number of times she'd had to lie to her mother, to her teachers, and to potential friends that didn't make it further than that weighed on her soul.

Every day that she could trick herself into believing that she was just another teenage girl provided some soothing relief.

Given she now had a special forces Lieutenant Sonya Blade bouncing around inside her head, she was finding it harder than usual to trick herself into believing lies.

She wasn't normal anymore. That was the truth. She was the Slayer with all the physical abilities that entailed as well as responsibilities that entailed. Even if she somehow managed to force the Watcher's Council to leave her alone, that would not keep the demons from showing up around her or nullify the predatory instincts a Slayer had. So long as whatever it was that made her the Slayer remained, she would remain a target for monsters and be compelled to hunt them in turn. The supernatural world would never let her go so long as a piece of it was lodged within her and, if a way existed to turn a Slayer back into a normal girl, the forces of darkness would've used it already.

Denying these truths would only hurt her in the end and likely the people she cared about.

With a final growl of fury she threw her costume across the room, venting for the last time her anger at what'd been stolen for her by the cruel hands of Destiny and Fate.

Walking over to her dresser, she took out her 'Yummy Sushi' pajamas but, when she put the top on, she found that there wasn't as much slack as there'd used to be in the front. Looking in the dresser mirror, she found that, thanks to her bust increase, the top was almost too small to be buttoned up safely without straining it somewhat. There was definitely more to look at chest-wise than before but this also meant that she'd have to go through her entire wardrobe to see what still fit. Anything that didn't would have to be tossed since Dawn was no longer small enough to hand them down to her and that meant shopping for new stuff.

 _At least it'll be easier to convince mom to take me shopping,_ she thought as she pulled up the bottoms of her pajamas. _She's probably gonna need new stuff, too._

Hearing noise coming from her window, she grabbed the nearest pointed object, a metal nail file, before whirling around to confront a possible threat.

She relaxed a bit when she saw it was Angel opening her window but only a bit.

THIS disturbed her because this was the man she loved as well as proving himself an ally to her in the past, either fighting by her side or providing important information. The second she'd known it was him she should've felt completely safe and happy but for some reason both only presented themselves in measured terms. It was as if something had shaken her faith in him and what they had together. She knew she trusted and loved him, she had the memories of feeling that way, but now those feelings had been cut in half. For a moment she considered just trying to fake the necessary responses her original emotions would've invoked but she decided she just didn't have it in her to fool anyone.

"Hey," she said, playing up the 'tired and I want to go to bed' act.

"Hey," he said as he set foot on the floor and stood up. "I take it something happened?"

"Yeah," she replied before yawning. "Giles thinks it has something to do with chaos magic but that's about it. It all happened so fast. He says he'll dig around to see what happened but it'll be a while."

"I'll check around and see if any magic users were up to anything before Halloween," Angel said, taking a moment to gaze thinkingly away before returning his eyes to her. "Chaos magic is pretty dicey stuff. Most sorcerers and warlocks stay away from it because of its unpredictable results. Only the insane or people that get off playing Russian Roulette use it."

"Great, so either a madman did this to me or an adrenaline junkie," she snarked at the image Angel had painted of the perpetrator. "I know I'll sleep better tonight just knowing that!"

"Well, one good thing about that is insane people or people looking for a thrill aren't sticklers for details and precision planning," Angel said in an effort to reassure her. "They'll have slipped up someplace and, once we found out where, we'll be able to track them down and tell us what spell they cast. We'll find a way to get everything back to normal. Promise."

She wanted to believe that.

She REALLY did.

But past experience had taught her that getting things back to normal was never as easy as it sounded and, more often than not, wound up with you just having to suck it up and accept the new circumstances. Time only flowed in one direction and life offered no do overs no matter what some people might think. You had to live with the consequences of your choices and while sometimes you got the chance to make amends, that didn't erase the mistake.

She'd work with Giles to see if there was a way to reverse everything, she owed the others that much, but she wouldn't hold out much hope for success.

"Thanks. Now if it's all the same to you, I'd like to get some sleep," she said as she walked over to the bed before pulling the covers aside. "This whole mess has worn me out."

"Sure. I'll swing by tomorrow night, at the library, if I've learned anything," he said, sounding a LITTLE disappointed that he had to leave so soon after arriving.

She knew that if she hadn't had any lingering crap from the magic spell inside of her they probably would've leapt on the chance to spend some quality time with him. Tonight, though, she just didn't have the same desires that she used to and wasn't about to fake it even for Angel's benefit.

"See you then," she said with a small grin of acknowledgment of his future efforts.

A grin was returned and then he was back out her window vanishing into the night like he had so many times before when he mysteriously showed up with info before disappearing. Shaking her head at the mess she now had to cope with, she slid beneath the covers of her bed and tried to settle into a comfortable sleeping position. It wasn't easier with her bigger boobs and more defined muscles but eventually she succeeded and closed her eyes to descend into slumber.

She didn't think her sleep would be all that peaceful with the new info bouncing around inside of it.

Guess she should be glad that Slayers didn't need as much sleep as ordinary people did.

 _ **Monday Morning**_

 _ **Sunnydale High School**_

 _ **Xander's POV**_

 _Well, this morning's off to a great start,_ he thought, finding it hard to say whether he was being sarcastic or honest.

After they'd left the library Halloween night he'd done his best to sneak back into his house without waking his parents since he didn't want to deal with the bother interacting with them usually produced. For as long as he'd known them they'd seemed less like parents and more like legally obligated guardians, with his mother only occasionally living up to her responsibilities to him. As for Tony, the less said about their 'relationship', the better. Put simply Tony was a drunken asshole who was about as politically incorrect as a person could get and not be shot dead by someone inside of three years. The only bright light he had was the tidbit he'd gleaned from his mother by accident one day when he'd overheard her trying to persuade Tony to be nicer to him.

Apparently Tony Harris' proverbial gun only shot blanks, so some other man out there was his biological father.

A smile blossomed on his face as he walked towards the library to get an update on the whole Sunnydale situation and he had no reason to suppress it. Just the knowledge that he wouldn't have to worry about inheriting anything biological or behavioral from Tony Harris improved his mood dramatically. He'd thought for a time about trying to track down who the guy was and even mentioned it to Willow but, according to her, back in nineteen eighty-four, the hospital where the procedure was conducted was destroyed in a terrorist assault. Pretty much everyone there was killed and the building reduced to rubble, with fires burning everything burnable to ashes along with any facts about who the sperm donor might've been. The fact that it was a military base meant digging any deeper would've got Willow the wrong sort of attention, so he'd told her to back off.

In the end it didn't matter who his biological father was because it was your mind and your soul that determined who you were, not your flesh.

In any case, when he'd tried to sneak out of the house earlier, his luck ran out since he wound up being spotted by Tony, who naturally pounced on the chance to lay into him verbally. However, unlike in the past, he didn't just stand there and take it. Instead he'd just turned away from the drunk and resumed his walk towards the door without saying a single thing as a parting shot. Tony had apparently been regularly ignored all his life and him doing it had been enough to stoke the fires of anger. The man had reached out to grasp him by the shoulder, no doubt with the intent of pounding some 'respect' into him.

That had been Tony Harris' plan.

Too bad plans had never gone right around him before and this time had been no different.

Before Tony's hand had even made contact with his shoulder his body moved on its own and, in the space of three seconds, had the drunk both dazed and on the ground. He'd almost allowed the shock he'd been feeling to show on his face but managed to keep it buttoned up long enough to warn Tony against similar action in the future before walking out the door.

 _I just know I'm gonna pay for that later,_ he thought as he pushed the library doors open. _But until then I'm gonna enjoy the buzz._

Upon entering the library he immediately noticed that, while each of his fellow Halloween afflicted fellows were dressed in their usual style, there was definite evidence of either new clothes or their old ones not fitting quite right. He could hear Giles talking in his office but the words were too muffled for him to make out, so he just walked over to join the others by the central table.

"So, anyone else loving their new makeovers?" he asked sardonically as he sat down in a vacant chair. "I know I am."

"Trakhat' tebya pridurok!" Cordy spat at him with a face full of frustrated anger. "I've been finding out just what the maids and butlers really think about me AND I almost pinned my dad's hand to a table with a LETTER OPENER!"

"We've all had issues but we just gotta hang on a while longer," Buffy said, trying to reign in the socialite. "Giles' got to have some kind of plan by now."

"He'd better, Summers," Cordy said with a dangerous tone that wasn't entirely coming from her Halloween inheritance.

"How're you holding up, Willow?" he asked, looking over to his best friend, who mostly looked like she usually did but had a mild expression of discomfort on her face.

"Pretty good. Some of the info R had is pretty interesting so I've been copying it down to see if we can do anything with it after Giles gets us all back to normal," Willow replied as she scratched her neck a bit. "It's just…"

"Just what?" he asked, wondering what the con could be to Willow's inheritance.

"R… her fashion sense was a little… risqué," Willow replied as her discomfort spiked. "She liked… defying cultural norms, shocking people. Wearing my usual clothes… they don't FEEL right."

Remembering what Dawn had said about who she was having Willow dress up as, he could see how dressing the part of a mousy academic redhead would cause friction with a… free thinker. If someone'd changed his internal preferences without his knowing, he'd probably feel uncomfortable too. Still, the fact that his best friend hadn't succumbed and tried to put something more in keeping with R's fashion sense together spoke well of her strength of will.

"Well, if it makes you feel any better, I KOed Tony before I left home this morning," he said, deciding that the best solution to discomfort was distraction. "Bet he's still on the floor out cold!"

This DEFINITELY had the effect of distracting Willow from her wardrobe discomfort but it also put him in something of a spotlight since most people wouldn't considering knockout out their parent a good thing. For a moment he wondered what the hell had come over him to even HINT at the truth of his home life but in the end he decided not to let this secret terrorize him any longer. With all the skills the others had gained from Halloween, it was only a matter of time before the signs of Tony's venting were noticed. Then, even if Giles managed to reverse things, they'd still have memories containing the truth.

Better to confront things head on and make it clear that his life would go down a different path from Tony Harris.

Trying to hide it would only make people think he wasn't strong enough to break away from the cycle Tony's treatment threatened to send him down. By showing them the strength of his will to be different, to be BETTER, he'd eradicate any doubts in the minds of others about his ability to be his own man.

"Won't that get you into trouble later?" Willow asked, sounding a little worried.

"Maybe after Giles puts us all back to normal," he replied with a measured voice. "That just means that until then I gotta do my best to 'convince' Tony that it's smarter to avoid me than give me grief."

"I don't know what your home life is like, Xander, but be careful you don't make more trouble for yourself," Missus S said in a neutral tone but with a glint of suspicion in her eyes.

"Don't worry," he said respectfully, receiving her words. "I'll try not to get into anything I can't get out of."

He could tell from the looks he was getting from Buffy and Cordy that they wanted to know more but a single look of 'no' to each of them kept anything from being spoken.

Hearing the conversation in Giles office come to an end, everyone looked toward the room's door to find out what had been learned and how long it'd take for them to be turned back to normal.

When the Watcher exited his office, the expression he wore did not fill him with confidence since it conveyed the impression of a man that'd been pushing himself for a while. He'd only seen this state a few times since he and Willow had officially volunteered to aid Buffy in her duties as the Slayer. Each prior occurrence was a dire time and required that the Scoobies come together and pool their strengths in order to emerge victorious.

"So what's the prognosis?" he asked, deciding to bite the bullet and make things easier on the others. "How soon until we get back to our regularly scheduled Hellmouthiness?"

"I'm not sure if that is possible," Giles replied, taking off his glasses before polishing the lenses with a handkerchief. "Not in Sunnydale if my sources are telling the truth."

"What do you mean?" Buffy asked, sounding worried.

"In an effort to learn more about what happened, I contact various 'freelancers' that the Council employ as an early warning system of the spread of supernatural phenomena. The ones surrounding Sunnydale were tasked with monitoring the situation here and warning the Council should signs manifest that our failure was… inevitable," Giles replied in a bitter tone of voice. "From what they have told me, the Halloween incident inundated Sunnydale with chaos magic and sadly, much like nuclear radiation, it is lingering rather than quickly dissipating. Being present in the soil, the air and the water, it will make spell casting of any sort unpredictable at best."

"So we go outside of the contamination zone and do the mojo there," he said, feeling as though the solution to the obstacle was obvious.

"That would attract attention we do not need," Giles said, shaking his head in opposition to the proposal.

"What do you mean?" Willow asked, mirroring Buffy's worry.

"The Sunnydale Hellmouth is one of the most potent sources of supernatural phenomena in the world. Only a handful of other places can boast similar occurrences. As a result of this, many individuals and organizations keep at least one eye on the place at all times. Many of those people are not the sort we would wish to become interested in us. Then there's the matter of the Council."

"It'd be a bit hard to make the Council believe everything's A-okay here if they spot us leaving Sunnydale and performing serious mojo," he said, realizing the problem and spelling it out for the others. "Even if they don't find out anything about what we were up to, they'll find it fishy when they compare it to your previous reports. Maybe too suspicious to let you operate without additional supervision."

"You think they'd send another Watcher?" Willow asked, gaining an understanding of the situation.

"Yeah, or replace him outright," he replied with his mind taking him to a darker place. "The chain of command's useless if you don't come down hard on those that don't respect it."

That was a bit of… Snake coming through but it was accurate just the same.

"Indeed. Travers and the faction he is a part of are very firm believers in tradition and obedience to the governing body is one of those traditions," Giles said, sounding like he very much did not approve of the current governing body of the Council. "The only way to determine which option Travers would employ is figuring out just how… ambitious he is feeling. Whether he wishes for a quick resolution or plans on giving us just enough rope to hang ourselves with."

"So what other options are there?" Missus S asked without giving away anything about what was going on inside her head.

"I am… uncertain," Giles replied, putting his glasses back on. "Only magic stands any chance of undoing what has been done but at the moment it cannot be used within the Sunnydale town limits. Our only option may be to wait and see if the chaos magic dissipates over time or at least reduces in potency to the point where using magic becomes an option once more."

"How long do you think that'll take?" Buffy asked, sounding only slightly upset by the news they were all receiving.

"Months at the very least, given the sheer amount of chaos magic released Halloween night," Giles replied, showing facially how he wished he had better news for them.

"MONTHS! You expect us to be able to stay sane for MONTHS!?" Cordy asked angrily as she moved forward to physically make Giles feel her displeasure.

Not wanting to see G-Man get hurt by an irrational Cordelia, he reached out to grip her by the shoulder to stop her advance… and immediately found himself in the middle of high speed combat. There was literally no time to think, only act, instincts directing how he moved from second to second and in an amount of time that he couldn't quantify it was over. The only catch was that it hadn't ended with one of them being the winner and one of them being the loser.

It ended with both of them having the other in a hold that could easily cause the receiver to lose consciousness if sufficient effort was put into it.

For a moment neither of them released their respective holds but, after Cordy recovered her senses like he had, she immediately released him so he did the same. Scampering back to her feet, the rich girl looked like she hadn't been any more in control of her actions just now than he had and this fact left her shaken. Not surprising since it wasn't every day that you found out that you had skills you never knew you had that could show up when you least expected.

Him, on the other hand, he found himself oddly pleased.

The kind of high paced fighting he'd just experienced generally could only be survived through years of training and cumulative experience.

Yet he'd done it.

Sure, he hadn't been consciously in control of every move he'd performed and couldn't consciously remember the moves Cordy had used but the facts supported the idea that the potential was there. If he could somehow bring out that potential and make it his own, he'd be the most dangerous normal human in Sunnydale.

Now THAT was something worth working towards.

He just had to make sure he 'learned' as much of Snake's training as he could before it became safe for Giles to cast the counter spell.

With a look of resolve he promised to make every day count.

 _ **Friday Morning**_

 _ **Backyard of Summers Home**_

 _ **Dawn's POV**_

"HAH!" she shouted before executing a kick to the tree in their backyard.

Some might wonder what she was doing kicking a tree and not just because the tree had never done anything to her in the past.

Before Halloween the backyard of the Summers home had been used for picnics and pseudo-camping trips, both of which had been fairly tame events. Sure, there'd been talking, some rough housing, but nothing truly violent. What was different this time was the fact that, due to her now older and more developed body, simply going back to school with the rest of the afflicted was no longer an option. While the others looked more or less like they had before, no one at her school would be able to ignore the changes she'd undergone. As a result her mother had called into her school to say that she'd caught a nasty bug Halloween night and was unable to attend. The general consensus between her, Buffy and mom was that they'd have another week at most before they'd have to come up with some other reason to keep people from seeing the new her.

They all hoped that by then Giles would be able to give them some ray of light to place their hopes on and pencil into their calendars.

Until then she was taking a page out of the same book as Xander, who'd admitted during the last meeting to training himself to remember what the Halloween costume had placed in his head. Now that she knew about the supernatural and that Buffy was the Slayer, she'd made the conscious choice not to sit out the fight on the sidelines. Even if she was a pain in the ass sometimes, her big sister was still family and there was no way she'd let herself be one of those people who just sat waiting for the hero to come home alive. She'd spend every minute she could without worrying her mother going through Taki's memories of her training days, going from the oldest ones and working her way forward. Most were fresh enough to contain exercises she could take advantage of but some she needed paper and pen to pull the details. In the end she was managing to work up quite the sweat, even though her body had magically been brought closer to where it needed to be to make use of Taki's skills.

It also increased her appetite decidedly as her body compelled her to replace the energy she'd used up but fortunately, according to her mom, it wasn't putting a strain on the family finances.

At least not for the time being it wasn't but who knew what the situation would be down the road.

"HAH! KI-AH!" she yelled as she performed a two hit combo before taking a step or two away from the tree.

She was getting closer to what she 'remembered' but she could still see flaws that irritated her, especially since she knew how it was supposed to be done. Apparently this was the difference between knowing how things were supposed to be and actually trying to do it. Her impatience was one of her worst features according to her mother but the head of the household had been confident that she'd grow out of it eventually.

In other words she'd learn patience after a while, whether she wanted to or not.

"Dawn! Breakfast!" Mom yelled from the kitchen like always.

Relaxing from the training mindset she'd been in, she walked over to a nearby chair, picked up a towel she'd placed there, before heading indoors. Wiping off the lingering sweat, she then took a deep sniff of the air before smiling at the scent of another wonderful meal made by her mother. Even on a gallery owner's income, her mom always managed to put together wonderful meals that never failed to satisfy her.

Buffy's attempts at cooking, on the other hand, were fit to be subjects of study for the C.D.C.

Since her culinary creations were at least edible, if not delicious, she could only presume that the cooking gene had skipped her elder sibling.

"So how's your training working out?" Mom asked, setting the plate of pancakes in the center of the table.

"I'm getting better but I've still got a long ways to go," she replied, taking her usual seat at the table.

"You'll get there," Mom said before taking her own chair. "I'll see about finding you a martial arts school somewhere close by after Mister Giles fixes us."

Huh.

"Aren't mothers supposed to be against their kids doing anything violent, like learning how to fight?" she asked, remembering the first week or so in Sunnydale when her mom had pleaded with Buffy not to get into any fights.

"Most mothers don't know they're basically living in a demilitarized zone surrounded by the ignorant masses," Mom explained as she began to put pancakes onto her plate. "Now that my blinders are off, I know that raising you here like any other teenager is just going to being playing Russian Roulette with your life. Better that you learn how to protect yourself than leave things to chance."

"Then why aren't you making plans to have us move someplace safer?" she asked since she knew that leaving for someplace safer was another way to avoid conflict.

"Well, for one thing there aren't any other schools in California that'll accept your sister, so if we wanted to move we'd have to leave the state. That'll cost money," Mom replied, cutting off a piece of a pancake. "Also buying the gallery, the house and everything else was something of an investment. Put it all together and leaving Sunnydale would cost more than we have right now."

Made sense.

With her father no longer around and only paying the bare minimum in child support, it'd all be on mom to pay for any attempt to move out of the state. She didn't know how much money was involved in a venture like that but she'd wager that it was a sizeable amount. It also meant that, unless the Summers family experienced a financial windfall in the next few months, they would have no choice but to adapt to the dangers of Sunnydale as best they could.

One way of adaptation was to learn ways to protect themselves.

"What about you? You training too?" she asked, realizing that her mom would need combat training of some kind too.

"I've managed to find a shooting range close by so I thought that I'd put in some practice there," Mom replied after swallowing her mouthful of pancake. "But that'll only cover the long distance combat scenarios. I'll need to learn something for when things get in close. Do you think Xander'd give me some lessons?"

"M-mom!" she exclaimed, choking and coughing on her mouthful of pancake.

Judging from the look on her mother's face, the woman had waited for the precise moment when she was beginning to swallow before dropping her question. Still the look of amusement on her mother's face made her think that she wasn't entirely joking when she'd proposed getting close quarters combat training from Xander.

"Why not? If that little sparring session with Cordelia is anything to go by the skills he got from 'Snake' are pretty good," Mom said, making it sound perfectly logical.

She had to admit that Xander had been awesome when he'd gone blow for blow with Cordelia that time in the library but the idea of her mother getting taught by HER future husband… EW! Images of both of them in workout clothing, getting all touchy feely either with individual move instruction or proper sparring sessions, bounced around her mind. THAT was something she never wanted to happen, much less witness herself! Sure, it'd be a different thing if she was the one learning and sparring but NOT her MOM.

NO WAY!

There had to be a way to throw up a roadblock in front of her mother.

"Maybe you should stick to guns," she pointed out, grabbing hold of the first possibility. "Even if you got some years back thanks to what happened, you're still pretty old. You might hurt yourself trying to do more than your body can handle."

"Oh, I don't plan on going for any title belts or fighting a platoon of trained soldiers hand-to-hand but it only makes sense since one of a sniper's greatest weaknesses is close quarters combat," Mom said, continuing eating like nothing was wrong. "Even if I don't get good enough to hold my own against some black ops soldier, something is better than nothing."

"Then why don't you ask Buffy or Cordelia to train you?" she asked, attacking the problem from another angle. "It'd make more sense than Xander since they're girls, too."

"No. Buffy wouldn't train me hard enough because I'm her mother and Cordelia… well…" Mom said, hesitating in her description of the Chase girl's flaws as a close quarters combat teacher.

Fortunately a teenager's active imagination made that easier for her.

Even with the Black Widow inheritance from Halloween Cordelia was still a rich girl socialite determined to remain at the pinnacle of the student body and then move up even higher. The odds that the brunette would agree to train her mom, much less be any good at it, were not good since it'd be dependent on the rich girl embracing her new knowledge.

Given how she freaked last time in the library… yeah, not going to happen.

"Then how about just focusing on your shooting for now?" she pleaded, unable to find anything better to do. "There's still a chance that Giles'll find something soon. No sense training your body if you're just going to get your years back."

"Fine. The Lady Deadshot in me is saying the same thing," Mom said with mock surrender. "Besides, I doubt I'd be able to focus on the training if Xander was doing it. He DEFINITELY hit the jackpot with his Halloween upgrade."

"MOM!" she yelled in embarrassment and opposition to her mother's antics.

 _ **Sunnydale High School**_

 _ **Student Lounge, Noon**_

 _ **Willow's POV**_

"Well, you know what, I'll take you there!" Buffy said, getting up and taking he friend Ford by the hand. "I'll see you guys in French!"

With that the blonde Slayer led her old friend from Hemery to escort him to the admissions office. Even as the duo left, though, the expression of teenage complacency mixed with 'you are butting in' vanished to reveal something decidedly more disciplined and suspicious. Had this been before Halloween she just would've written it off as her best friend's lingering lust for Buffy and jealousy of any guy who got too close to her. Since she'd inherited the memories and personality of MI6's R, though, the way she interpreted the world around her and even how she thought had changed. The R she became was in her early thirties so, with the Halloween inheritance, she also gained a slight increase in maturity, letting her see past many of the obstructions other teenagers couldn't.

"You think he's hiding something?" she asked, never taking her eyes off of Ford's retreating back.

"Yep," Xander replied, never losing his point of focus.

"Plan on checking up on him?" she asked as she began to prepare plans of her own.

"Yep," he said with a slight nod of his head.

"Want me to come along?" she asked on a whim since it'd mean some alone time with her crush.

"Nope. Sneaking around's easier to do if you're alone," he replied with a shake of his head. "Besides, if R was anything like Q, she was a lab jockey. Not a field agent."

"You're mostly right but she was still a member of MI-6 so she did have weapons training, even if she didn't get many opportunities to use it," she said to counter his claim that she would be hopeless outside of a lab. "She could handle both automatics and semi-automatics without anyone having to worry about friendly fire."

"Not exactly encouraging," he commented, a slight rasp sneaking into his voice. "Look, for right now we're just gonna be following him and checking out his story. We play our cards right and guns won't be necessary."

Point.

"Fine. I'll stick to the computer side of things and follow Ford's trail back as far as I can," she said, reluctantly conceding his point. "Be careful. Until we have a better idea of what he's up to, anything's possible."

"Don't worry. I'm still me but Snake'll keep me from doing anything too crazy," he said with a reserved lopsided grin. "You be careful, too."

"Please! What're the odds that someone's keeping eyes on some teenage guy's digital data?" she asked dismissively at the danger she'd be in. "Besides that, while I was good before, with R's know how inside my head I'll be magnificent! They'll never see me coming."

"Just try not to let that ego of yours get out of control," he replied with his grin growing in size. "If your head gets too big, they won't even need a scope to pop it."

"Same goes for you," she said with small smile of her own.

A light chuckle passed between them and they spent the remainder of the lunch hour just talking about the things they usually did. When the bell rang for the next class they gathered their things and left for their lockers to pick up what they'd need. She almost didn't see the point in going because if she'd been smarter than everyone but the teacher before Halloween, she was smart enough to teach at the college level now. A lot of the challenge she'd felt taking the advanced classes before was gone now and with it the corresponding satisfaction she'd felt upon overcoming the challenges. It turned out that, while there existed some minor anomalies when comparing what R knew with what was in the textbooks in class, the information was mostly the same.

What that meant was that she could goof off as much as she wanted and would likely still manage to pass any test she was given and get excellent marks on any assignments.

At least until Giles managed to figure out a way to turn her back to the way she'd been before Halloween because after that she'd have to resume putting the usual amount of effort into her studies.

That was something she'd been considering the last few days: did she really want to go back to who she'd been?

Sure, beforehand she'd been one of the two brains that supported the Slayer in her fight to keep the dark forces of the Hellmouth in check and, with further learning, her ability to contribute would also increase. She'd even contemplated asking Giles to sponsor her so she could become a Watcher like him, so she could graduate from being a civilian ally to a true comrade in the fight. It was an ambitious but nevertheless feasible.

With the inheritance she'd received from R it wouldn't take much for her skip many years of study and go straight to submitting her application to Watcher Academy, or whatever it was called. Giles never mentioned much of the particulars of the organization but she presumed that alongside the arcane aspects there had to be a division for developing new tools and weapons. With R's memories and skills for developing similar items for Commander James Bond, she could be a big help in creating new anti-demon technology. In her spare time at home she'd already begun sketching out some ideas based on what Giles had told them about vampires and the demons Buffy'd slain so far. It was just the broad strokes, of course, she couldn't go into more detail until she had a better idea of what she had to work with, but once she had the necessary information it'd all come together. She'd be able to produce a rough prototype that Buffy would be able to use in the field and once the kinks had been worked out it'd make her acceptance into the Watcher Academy all but certain.

She couldn't keep a light chuckle from escaping her lips as she walked, causing some of the other students to look at her funny but she ignored them.

Even before Halloween she'd gotten good at blocking out the words and actions of others but ever since Halloween it'd stopped being selective sensory acceptance and started being simple disregard.

Throughout her career at MI-6, the woman known as R had been forced to deal with the prejudices such an organization had towards women, as well as the womanizing tendencies of a certain double oh agent. Instead of letting them chip away at her confidence or hinder her progress, the woman had been determined to carve her own path and render her opposition ordinary rather than intimidating. Indeed, she took special pleasure in turning the tables on them and putting them on the defensive all the while doing her job.

She was still not at R's level but the more time passed, the more she stepped away from who she used to be and became… someone else.

Something else.

With all the potential that she saw ahead of her with the 'ghost' of R inside of her, throwing it all away just because it was 'unnatural' seemed like such a waste. If there were negative side-effects to the changes she underwent Halloween night, something that might threaten her life or her sanity, then perhaps she could agree to the reversion. However she'd neither felt nor seen any sign of that being the case and she HAD looked for such problematic symptoms. Was there something going on that she could not perceive with her own senses and thought processes alone?

Maybe.

It wasn't like she had access to the necessary technology to run a scan of her brain, much less the rest of her body. Add to that the fact that R's area of expertise was more technological than biological and the possibility that she'd overlooked something was very real.

Still, until some sort of evidence presented itself to prove that her 'improvements' were a danger to her continued survival, she would use them to her advantage.

And when the time came to make a decision between being Willow Rosenberg or Willow R, she hoped by then she'd know who she wanted to be.

 _ **The Streets of Sunnydale**_

 _ **After The End of Classes at Sunnydale High School**_

 _ **Xander's POV**_

 _So far, so good,_ he thought as he continued to tail Ford. _Doesn't look like he knows he's being followed._

As soon as classes had let out he'd asked for Willow to cover for him while he went after Ford, using an excuse that would sound perfectly normal but also would give him some operational flexibility. With Buffy's tendency towards seeing what she wanted to see and ignoring the rest, he felt safe in the assumption that she wouldn't try to look past the words she'd been given. Unless something came up that made her suspicious, he should have the time he needed to see if his suspicions regarding Ford were correct.

Already he'd confirmed his first bit of suspicious info: Ford wasn't heading to the residential areas of Sunnydale but rather the more industrial areas. Sure, there was the off chance that someone had put together an apartment building out of what used to be a factory or office but he didn't think so. If Ford's family travelled in the same social circles as Buffy's, that meant middle class and people living in that niche of society tended to prefer houses and white picket fences.

More conducive towards nurturing kids and facilitating a sense of community, or at least that's what he thought.

So what was Ford doing out here? Meeting with one or both of his parents? Maybe but he didn't think so.

Seeing Ford come to a stop he immediately ducked into an alley, flattening his back against the wall to keep anything from poking out for his quarry to see, and listened with his ears for the sound of resuming footsteps. When feet started to hit sidewalk he counted to five before exiting the alleyway, resuming his tailing of Ford to wherever the new arrival was going. The pursuit had already been going on for half an hour but he didn't expect it to be too much longer. If the former resident of Los Angeles was up to something shady, he wouldn't choose a base of operations too far from the territory of his target.

As soon as he got a lock on that base of operations he'd wait until the kid left before sneaking inside to see what he could find. Anything incriminating probably wouldn't be out in the open on the off chance he brought off guests there who were not in the know about his plans. At the same time, though, he didn't believe that Ford was smart enough to be able to hide all of the clues of what he was up to. So long as he kept an eye peeled for anything… odd, he'd find what he was looking for.

It was four minutes later that it looked like Ford had finally led him to his base of operations and it looked like it was in some sort of basement apartment. Waiting until Ford went inside, he considered his options.

Without knowing the interior layout of the place simply going in the same way could very well get him caught. He needed to find a way to follow that wouldn't leave him exposed to anyone who might be inside, especially Ford. Looking about the building's exterior for another way in, he was dismayed to find that there was a distinct lack of windows aside from three that he could see and each of those had bars on them. While he could probably pry the bars off, it'd make some serious noise that'd alert anyone inside that someone was mucking about.

It wasn't until his eyes hit the roof that he saw his way in and had to grimace a bit since he'd never been a big fan of tight spaces. On the roof there was an opening for an air vent that led into the building and it was just big enough for someone his size to squeeze into so long as he was willing to move at a snail's pace.

"Not the sort of Snake skills I was hoping to experience firsthand so early," he whispered to himself but nonetheless it was the best way for him to get in without being seen.

With that in mind he crossed the street to the alley next to the building whose basement Ford went into before growling at the lack of fire escapes that would've made his ascent easy. Taking the measure of the state of the walls on either side, he picked the one to the left before beginning his difficult climb to the roof. It wasn't easy, most of the handholds were barely big enough for his fingers and thumb to get a good grip, but the memories he had inherited from Snake helped. Nevertheless by the time he reached the roof he needed to take a brief rest to recover some strength since, even with the physical changes of Halloween, he still wasn't in a condition similar to black op soldiers.

 _I'll need to keep training,_ he thought as he looked over at the vent opening. _Keep pushing my limits. Can't overwork since that'll do more harm than good but gotta get as close as possible._

It took him a moment or three before he felt ready for another bit of physical exertion but once he was he made his way to the vent opening.

Looking down into the darkness, he felt fear rise within him as his mind conjured images of how his intended action could go VERY badly. With a growl of defiance, though, he silenced those fears and pulled from his mind every trick Snake knew for crawling through vents. Carefully and precisely he entered the vent head first, using the muscles in both his arms as well as both his legs to control his descent. Doing so without caring about making noise was easy but doing so while making every effort to remain unheard by the building's occupants… much more challenging.

It was especially challenging for someone like him, who was doing this for the first time.

Still, with his suspicions about Ford and his unwillingness to allow harm to befall Buffy, his resolve proved strong enough to keep his movements steady.

Without a map for the vent system in the building all he could do was keep heading down and listen for any voices he might hear, especially if one of them was Ford's. It took a while and a little bit of backtracking but eventually he managed to find the room he was looking for.

He almost wished that he hadn't.

Looking into the room, it was filled with people milling about, hanging out, and all of them shared a single theme: Victorian era vamps. While some of them could be mistaken as noblemen and women at first glance, he could see that the ones closest to the vent cover he was peering through had fake fangs in their mouths. A few of them were even reclining in stereotypical black coffins with plush blood red interiors! He could hear televisions on but he couldn't quite make out what they were playing but, considering the theme of the room's occupants, he could take a wild guess.

Vamp fans. The very thought made him feel overwhelming disgust for the people below.

How could any sane person LIKE vampires? They were monsters, murderers who preyed on mankind and saw every human on the planet as either food or playthings for their amusement! Even as a part of him tried to talk reason, pointing out that the majority of the idiots had probably never even met a real vampire, all it took was remembering Jesse to drown the reason out.

More than that, though, what was Ford doing associating with such people? Was he like them? Did he think vampires were cool? If so then he found the teenager's arrival in Sunnydale and reunion with Buffy to be more than a little suspicious. A vampire lover moving from Los Angeles to the Sunnydale Hellmouth and getting back in touch with the vampire SLAYER? Even if the young man didn't know Buffy was the Slayer, it couldn't be coincidence that he'd come to vamp central and set up a vamp lover club. Something was afoot.

Something bad.

"How're the preparations coming?" Ford asked as the teenager himself walked close enough for him to pick up the rat's voice.

"Good. Dwayne's more than half done," another teenage guy's voice said before being revealed as some geek dressed up in a Dracula cape. "He'll be done right on schedule."

"Good, we can't have the door opening any other way than how we want," Ford said, sounding like this was an important bit.

"Don't worry. Once it's shut, the only way it'll open up is from the outside," Drac Junior said, sounding quite confident of Dwayne's work.

It didn't take very long after that for him to figure out what was likely to happen.

Ford was allied with vampire fanboys and fangirls. They had a location that looked pretty sturdy and apparently were modifying the door so it could only be opened from the outside. They'd only be doing that if they meant to trap something or someone inside. Considering how Ford had come out of nowhere and gotten back in touch with Buffy the Vampire Slayer, it was clear that the prick intended for Buffy to get trapped inside the vamp fan club.

The only question was why. What could Ford possibly stand to gain from capturing Buffy?

A group of teenagers couldn't possibly have the smarts or the resources to make use of a Slayer so that implied that they had a client or partner who had both. His mind immediately went to a demon of some sort, one currently living in Sunnydale or planning to move in, with the other possibility being the government. According to Giles, the Watcher's Council had a deal with all of the major nations of the world where, so long as the Council kept the countries up to date on the supernatural, the Slayer was given permission to enter those countries to fight demons. However Hollywood movies and the bits he'd managed to see clearly from his Halloween inheritance made it clear that there would always be those who were selfish.

There'd have to be someone or perhaps more than one person in a world government who wanted to just co-opt what the Watcher's had and make it their own.

That included the Slayer.

Indeed, that asset, a super soldier that would always be, was probably quite the appetizing piece of meat for any country since it'd only take a little polish to make a newly Called ready for battle.

Whatever the case, he had to get back to the others and warn them that Ford was up to no good.

Navigating his way back through the vents to his entry point on the roof was a marathon in and of itself. By the time he plopped down on the roof he was sweaty all over and breathing like he'd competed in a major track and field event.

 _Definitely not in the right shape for this shit,_ he thought as he pushed himself onto his feet and made his way back to the edge of the roof.

Imagining the climbing he'd now had to do in order to get down to the ground, he groaned and made a promise to himself that he wouldn't try anything like this for a good while.

Not until he could handle it without being utterly exhausted afterwards.

That'd take time.

He hoped he had that much time.


	3. Thinking outside of the box

Disclaimer: I do not own any of the copyrighted materials contained herein. They are the rightful property of their respective creators and/or associated companies. I make no profit from this whatsoever and I have no intention of changing this in the future. I write because it's fun and because there are those who enjoy reading my work. Therefore I'd appreciate it if no one sued me or anything. I can promise you that whatever you got from me wouldn't cover even a fifth of your legal fees.

 _ **The Back Room of the Summers Art Gallery**_

 _ **Joyce's POV**_

 _There! Ready for use,_ she thought as she finished cleaning her Remington 700 rifle.

She'd gotten home from shooting a few rounds at the local shooting range an hour ago and, just like the shop keeper she'd bought the rifle from had advised, she hadn't wasted time before cleaning it. Every time you used a gun it got 'dirty', for want of a better word, and if you left it by itself the dirt built up while it also became harder to clean. As a result she hadn't missed a single cleaning the entire time she'd owned it.

As for her ability to use it, she could consistently hit the target at the other end of the shooting range.

Still, she was far from being able to hit the exact center of the circle every single time so it'd be a while before she'd consider herself ready for the real thing.

What would the real thing be? Why, helping her daughter in order to make sure she made it home in one piece every night, of course. As much as she wanted to keep Buffy from harm, she knew that as long as they lived in Sunnydale that wouldn't be an option. They were living in a hot zone of demonic activity and, even if she convinced her eldest daughter to stop being the Slayer, it wouldn't last. Buffy wasn't so heartless that she'd be able to willfully remain blind and deaf as people suffered or died around her. It'd only be a question of time before the deaths and the misery made it impossible not to take action to put a stop to it.

So if stopping Buffy from getting into danger altogether was not an option, then the only other choice was to do all she could to up the odds of her eldest coming home alive.

Given what she'd inherited from Halloween, it'd only made sense to work towards becoming a reliable sharpshooter. However, since she had no trouble accepting that she was no spring chicken, she was focusing on being a sniper in order to keep danger at a safe distance. She hadn't ENTIRELY been lying when she'd teased Dawn about her approaching Xander for some instruction in close quarters combat. The whole point of being a sniper was to keep your targets from knowing where you were and aiming for one shot, one kill throughout the entire mission. However the possibility existed that a sniper's position could be found and, if they could not be shot dead from a distance, flushing them out of their nest was a viable tactic. This could be done by making it hazardous for the sniper to remain there via indefinite bombardment or by successfully getting troops up to the shooter.

In the case of bombardment, anyone with common sense would know to get the hell out of their nest the second they recognized that it was about to become rubble.

It was in the case of the latter where being able to fight up close with a certain level of skill became a necessity.

Still, until she got her sharpshooting skills up to a respectable level, she'd hold off on unarmed combat training.

Whether she'd ask Xander for help when the time came… she had to admit there was a certain level of amusement to be had in causing her daughters to freak out at whatever their imaginations came up with.

Another bit of preparation she'd been doing was 'treating' every bullet she'd purchased so that it'd achieve maximum effectiveness when they hit their target. Given that Buffy had said her job title was 'vampire slayer', she'd used some tools she'd gotten to inscribe crosses on every round and found a way to put silver from blessed crosses into the grooves. To top it all off, she also soaked the bullets in holy water from the local church for as long as she dared without letting the possibility of rust and corrosion set in. In her opinion when you added all three things together you had bullets that, even if they didn't kill vampires with one shot, they'd hurt like a sonuvabitch. They'd also be a bitch to pull out assuming the bloodsucker didn't have a set of tweezers or pliers handy.

Would they work? She wasn't sure. Silver was soft and the barrel was rifled; it was entirely possible that the rifling would tear the silver out, throwing off the ballistics of the round.

She intended to make sure that she had a stockpile of at least a hundred rounds at any given time so that, if necessary, she could take on an army of vampires. At the moment, though, she could safely say that she had twenty rounds ready for use, with another thirty in the middle of receiving their special treatments. She also hoped to be able to test them out before anything REALLY needed to be done.

Hearing the phone ring, she set aside the Remington before reaching for and picking up the receiver and putting it to her ear.

"Summers Gallery, Joyce Summers speaking," she said, like she did for every call she answered at the gallery.

"Missus Summers, I regret to inform you that your daughter skipped her afternoon classes," spoke a voice filled with bitterness and anger. "This is unacceptable behavior. I suggest you get her straightened out or I will have to take steps of my own."

"Of course, Principal Snyder. I'll make sure Buffy understands this the next time I see her," she said politely after recognizing the voice of the troll that ran Sunnydale High School. "After all, nothing is more important for a growing young lady than her education. Goodbye."

Without waiting for more of the man's bile she hung up the phone and then took it off the hook to prevent any follow up calls. She'd learned of the troll named Snyder that first parent teacher night after the man had been named Principal Flutie's replacement and she had to wonder if he'd even been interviewed before being given the job. The man thought that all students were criminals in the making, or destined for spirit crushing minimum wage jobs for crying out loud! Principals were supposed to be mentors, nurturers, who helped the students under their charge to reach their potential while also punishing bad behavior.

The fact that the moron had it in for her daughter certainly didn't help either.

 _Still, if she's not at school, then where is she?_ she thought before reaching into her purse before taking out a device the size of a TV remote.

One of the first things that she'd done with her Halloween inheritance was use Lady Deadshot's knowledge to construct crude but effective tracking devices, as well as a device to find them. It'd take some work to make one small yet powerful enough for her purposes and then plant them in things Buffy or Dawn weren't likely to stray far from. She'd had to make a few trips to the local electronics store and go through several trial runs but eventually she'd managed to create something that met her needs.

Switching on the device in her hand, the screen lit up before giving her a direction and estimating distance based on the strength of the signal coming from the tracking device. Moving it in various directions, she could see that Dawn was still at home but, when she looked for where Buffy was, she found her nowhere near her usual haunts. Indeed, based on her rough understanding of Sunnydale's layout, her eldest was in the industrial area of the town. That area housed the factories, the warehouses and the industrial business offices.

Why was she there?

The answer came quickly.

Slayer business. Something that required the presence of a Slayer was going on in that part of Sunnydale AND was urgent enough to get Buffy to skip her afternoon classes. However, since her eldest had missed those classes, it meant that the problem wasn't something easily overcome since, according to her inheritance, an operative being late to return usually meant trouble had found them. If her daughter was in danger then there was only one thing to do.

She picked up four things that she would need.

First she picked up her rifle before sliding it into its carrying case.

Then she went to where she'd stored the prepared bullets before sliding each round into its proper place in a strip of webbing she could strap across her chest. It looked like she was going to find out if these rounds would, in fact, work.

Thirdly she plucked a mask that'd be going on display out of its box that was just big enough to cover her entire face if she put it on. One side was solid black while the other was white but with an open hole that would leave the eye exposed but that worked fine for her.

Why? Because of the fourth and final item she kept in her purse wherever she went: the crimson eye targeting eye patch. It was something that had remained after Halloween had come to an end and it still worked like it had for her fictional character. Multiple vision modes, up to twenty magnification levels and had communications incorporated into its strap design. It was also just the right size so that she'd be able to wear it through the side of the mask that had the exposed eye beneath it.

 _I'm on my way, Buffy,_ she thought as she left her gallery, locking the door behind her. _You're not alone in this and you never will be._

Not if she had anything to say about it.

 _ **Sunset Club, Sunnydale**_

 _ **Buffy's POV**_

 _Maybe I should've taken up Xander's offer of backup,_ she thought before giving up on pounding her way through the door.

She'd talked him out of coming with her by saying there was no need for both of them to get in trouble with Snyder and that she could handle Ford herself. The truth of the matter was that she just didn't want to put him in a situation where he might have to rely on what he'd inherited from his Halloween self.

Big Boss.

As soon as she'd realized that her best guy friend had gone as a real person rather than someone fictional, she'd had Willow dig up what she could on 'MSF' and its leader. According to the redhead, the organization claimed that it was a 'deterrent for hire' that would go wherever the job required them to go. It was even speculated by several experts that MSF was the original seed from which all the following private military companies sprung. However, due to their money-focused job, questionable tactics on the battlefield and their oil rig base of operations, they were often referred to as pirates.

There were numerous rumors though that they had numerous important clients, ranging from the KGB, the American Joint Chiefs of Staff and many other nations.

However when MSF's base of operations was destroyed in 1974, all of their activities came to light as well as a suspected list of clients, even though those same people and groups denied any connections existed. While not as longwinded as some, the scandal involving MSF went through the rounds in the media, with several experts pegging them as money grubbing guns for hire that could not be trusted.

She wasn't stupid enough to think that everything shown on TV, even back in the seventies, could be taken at face value, but with nothing disrupting the image being painted of MSF, the basics had to be true. Right?

If that was the case then Xander had a whole bunch of bad stuff stuck in his head and she was afraid that the more he tapped into it for whatever reason, the more he'd be changed as a person. She didn't want that for him. She wanted him to remain her best friend, a goofy guy who'd saved her life twice, instead of someone who wouldn't lift a finger to help unless money was involved. She was very much a child of her generation and, as such, she believed that where fighting was involved, both principles as well as fundamental rights should be the prime motivators. To make the almighty dollar the governing reason for what you shot or what you blew up made you less of a person in her eyes. It was too much like the vampires who acted based on their need for blood and their primal hunger for carnage.

Who knew? Maybe the people in charge of MSF were demons or vampires looking to make a buck while at the same time sate their thirst for violence.

In any case, she didn't want the stuff Xander had inside of him to seep any deeper than it had to before Giles got his chance to fix things. After all, just because her Watcher couldn't do anything now that didn't mean he wouldn't be able to later. Whether later turned out to be weeks or months she didn't know but she was confident that Giles would come through for them. All they had to do was keep what they'd gained Halloween night at arm's length as best they could until then and everything would go back to normal.

"It's no use, Summers," Ford said from behind her. "It's almost sundown and once the sun's gone, I figure we'll have twenty minutes at best before they get here."

"That means you've all got a little under an hour to live and those'll be the lucky ones," she said as she turned around to glare at her former friend. "The unlucky ones'll be tortured for weeks or months before the vampires get tired of it all and kill you."

"You're wrong!" the blonde girl in the blue and black dress shouted. "So long as we give you up, they'll make all of us like them. Immortal! Superhuman! It'll be wonderful!"

"Oh, yeah! Wonderful… so long as you don't mind handing over your bodies to a demonic spirit that'll go after any friends and family you have as its first meal," she said, remembering what Giles had told her about the common tendencies of newly risen vampires. "Depending on how 'playful' the new owner of your body turns out to be, they might just be drained to death or they might be turned into 'pets' for the vampire's sick games."

She could see that some of the teens in the club were a bit shaken by the idea but most stubbornly clung to their delusion of ascendance to becoming 'Lonely Ones'.

 _At least this proves that stupidity isn't limited to hair color,_ she thought, remembering the few blonde jokes that had been tossed her way since she dyed her hair.

Still, until she had a moment of inspiration for getting the door open, all she could do was wait for Giles to notice her absence and send reinforcements or hope that the vamp Ford had made a deal with didn't have a big gang. In either case, things would turn out okay since Giles could open the door from the outside or she could handle a small group of vamps, assuming there weren't any of Spike's age amongst them.

If Giles didn't send reinforcements, though, or the vamps turned out to be too much for her to handle… she knew she'd die young soon after facing her first vampire. Even with all the training and experience she'd gained since her time with Merrick, she knew that she wouldn't live to see twenty. If tonight turned out to be the night that she met her end, she just hoped that the people she loved wouldn't do anything too crazy. Giles would grieve but would feel obligated to take care of Willow, Dawn and Xander in her name if nothing else. Xander would probably be all the more determined to take revenge on the vampires and use anything that could help him advance towards that goal. Dawn would probably want to follow him given her childish crush on him but she trusted that her mom would keep that from happening. Willow… she'd either be crushed by her death or be hardened by it, but in any case the redhead would probably follow Xander wherever he went, supporting him all the way.

Then she heard the sound of the door mechanism working, causing her as well as just about everyone else turn. When she saw the door open she was worried that the vamps had somehow figured out a way to get to the club early. However Xander came in with the prop rifle that'd been a part of his Halloween costume raised, as if prepared to fire at the first sign of hostile movement.

"Cavalry's here, Buffy," Xander said with a slight rasp to his voice. "Not that I'm all that impressed with the baddie this time around. Definitely amateur hour here."

"The fuck you say?!" Ford exclaimed, looking and sounding quite pissed about the recent turn of events. "I planned this for MONTHS down to the smallest detail!"

"And yet you forgot to make sure that any backup Buffy might have couldn't get here in time to thwart your dastardly plan," Xander said sarcastically, without letting his aim or his gaze waver. "Did you really think that if Buffy bailed on her afternoon classes and didn't check in, that someone wouldn't come looking for her before sundown? Sloppy planning but I'm not complaining. Ready to go, Buff?"

"Way past ready," she said as she turned her back on Ford and headed for the door.

Hopefully now that Ford's plan had fallen apart, the sheep he'd been ready to serve up to the vamps would figure out that survival depended on vacating the premises immediately. It was one thing to be all confident about being turned into a 'Lonely One' when you had the means to hold up your end of the bargain, but it was something else entirely when you didn't. Sure, some of the supremely stupid ones would probably think that they could talk their way out of the bad situation but hopefully most of them would an IQ superior to that of a chimp.

"S-somebody stop them!" the blonde in the blue dress managed to yell out despite her obvious fear. "If the Slayer gets away, it's all over for us!"

"Sure. Go ahead. Do something," Xander said, never losing the rasp but deadly serious with his tone. "But before you do I'd like you to think about something."

Xander raised the barrel of his rifle, pulling the trigger.

To the surprise of both her as well as everyone else in the room, the prop turned out to be a REAL rifle loaded with REAL bullets.

"No, this is not a prop, yes it's loaded with real bullets and yes I will shoot whoever decides to do something stupid," Xander said, once more lowering his aim to direct the barrel at the crowd of club patrons. "So the question you've got to ask yourself is: do I really want to be the first to die?"

THAT had a decisive effect on everyone, her included.

She was certain that none of the vampire fan girls or boys would try anything because, while they might all have wanted to become undead, it was a prerequisite that they be alive for the turning. Then, of course, there was the fact that if the scent of blood in the air got too strong it might stir any group of vamps into a feeding frenzy, so that'd be bad, too, but she doubted that the idiots before her realized that.

It was times like these that made her wish that the truth about demons and vampires could be made public because then situations like these wouldn't happen.

Or at least not to anyone she'd lose sleep over if they were killed.

As she walked out of the club with Xander, she waited until they were in the open air before she decided to get chatty.

"Where the HELL did you get bullets?!" she asked in anger at the development. "For that matter, why is that thing real? Shouldn't it have gone back to being a prop after the spell ended?"

"Yeah, it should've, but the thing is that it didn't really change weight or balance at all when the spell hit and after it ended. I'm thinking I somehow got a real gun from that costume shop," Xander replied, slinging the rifle onto his back via the strap across his chest. "Just needed ammo."

"And you got that where?" she asked as they began to head to the high school.

"Local army surplus store. Before I got offered Snake's MSF sneaking suit, I was planning on getting some used camo fatigues from the place," he replied as a slightly puzzled look came over his face. "I went there to see if there was anything I could get that'd be useful to us but the owner had some guys he was talking to. Then out of nowhere he started talking to me like I was a regular and asked me to help him bring some stuff out from the back room. Didn't really know what was going on but I played along. When we got out back, the owner picked up three ammo cases and shoved them into my arms before telling me to scram out back with them."

"And you didn't ask why? Or just drop the cases and leave?" she asked, making it clear that that would've been what she'd have done in his place.

"I tried asking why but he wasn't letting me get a word in edgewise and all but shoved me out the back door with them. I get the feeling that the bullets inside aren't exactly legal for civilian sale," Xander said, sounding like he had tried to refuse the ammo. "As for not ditching them afterwards… it'd be a shame to let perfectly good bullets go to waste. Plus, after I looked inside, I found out that they're compatible with the AM MRS-4, so it seemed like divine intervention to me and I kept'em."

"And if those guys who were making the store owner sweat come looking for you?" she asked, pointing out a very real possibility.

"So what if they do? They have to prove I took anything and I hid the cases someplace they'll never find them," he replied, not looking worried like he should've been.

"And if they find you here in the open with that on your back?" she asked, pointing out a real possibility.

"What makes you think they'll be any different from the local P.D.?" he asked in return, though skeptical. "Those fat asses definitely don't come out after dark even if you call 911."

"There's always a chance," she pointed out insistently, trying to make him see reason.

"I stand a better chance of running into Spike out of the blue than the firearm cops," he said, not sounding worried in the least.

"Then today must be your lucky day, mate," came a cockney voice that she remembered all too well from parent teacher night.

Turning around, she saw a sight that made her glad that it was only her and Xander standing there because at least then the rest of the people they cared about would survive. A little over thirty yards away was not only Spike and the girl she'd seen Angel talking to but, fourteen minion vamps backing the Slayer killer up. For a moment she wondered why the Billy Idol wannabe had come from but then she realized: THIS was the vamp Ford had made a deal with.

It just figured that her former friend would make a deal with the current top dog of the vampire community instead of some random bloodsucker.

In response to a threat, Xander brought his rifle off his back and aimed it in the general direction of the vampires but, as she'd expected, none of the undead were worried.

"Didn't you get the memo, whelp? Guns don't work on us." Spike said with condescending amusement.

"They can't kill you, sure," Xander said, an updated version of his lopsided grin growing onto his face.

Then, without warning, he dropped to one knee before opening fire, shooting in bursts rather than just holding down the trigger. To her surprise vamp after vamp fell to their knees, with one of those knees bloody and broken, revealing the strategy her friend was going for.

"Slow you down, though? Oh yeah!" Xander said as he continued to fire even as the vamps supernatural reflexes and speed got them behind cover.

"Bloody wanker! I'll skin you alive for that!" Spike yelled from cover but wisely did not stick his head out to glare.

Xander's only response was to spray the bleach blonde vampire's cover with more bullets.

For a moment she thought that this was their big chance to bail, make a run for it, but then the facts came down like a hammer on that course of action. Even if some of the vamps had been kneecapped, there were still enough that could chase after them and, even if she could get away, her best guy friend wouldn't fare so well. If it'd just be the minions she could probably manage keeping the two of them alive but, with Spike and his girlfriend around, that was just a little too risky for her liking. They needed to either scare Spike and his crew into retreating or kneecap all of them so they couldn't pursue.

"You got enough rounds to make'em all want crutches?" she asked, hoping that by whispering right into Xander's ear while he was shooting so that Spike wouldn't catch anything.

"Not as long as they stick to cover like they're doing. Problem is if I ease up enough to let them come out of cover, some of them will get to us," he replied, quickly swapping out a magazine for a fresh one. "One of them kills me or knocks my MRS-4 away and they'll dog pile us."

If the vamps did that then they'd be in bad shape, with Xander probably being dead and her limping home, if she was lucky.

What other option was there?

CHOW!

"What the hell?!" she exclaimed even as she watched one of the vamps fall out from behind its cover even as it turned to dust with the all too familiar demonic cry echoing in the air.

CHOW!

Another vamp turned to dust, this time missing a good portion of its head.

"Sounds like we've got backup!" Xander said with glee even as he took shot of his own at the vamps startled enough to stray from their cover long enough for the shot to count. "And I got a feeling I know who it is."

Someone they knew who could fire precision shots and didn't need to be close by?

That could only mean…

"MOM!" she exclaimed, terrified and incredulous at the idea of her mother being here and using a sniper rifle to kill vampires.

This was a whole new level Hellmouthiness that she didn't want to deal with!

 _ **Xander's POV**_

 _Last mag,_ he thought calmly even as he focused on what wandered into his crosshairs.

Still, things were turning out better than he'd hoped they would after Spike and his minions had showed up. When that'd happened, he'd figured 'take as many of them down with me' was the best he could hope for. Sure, his plan to kneecap as many as he could was a good one but he'd predicted that it wouldn't last long once the element of surprise was lost. Until that first sniper shot let him know that they had backup, his only plan had been to keep Spike and his gang pinned down until either he or Buffy came up with a new plan.

Now, though, the cover the vamps had wasn't nearly as effective from wherever Missus S was sniping them from.

"Buffy? Get your stake ready," he said as a reckless course of action formed in his mind. "When I say 'go', follow me in. Stake and move on. Got it?"

For a moment it looked like Buffy would refuse to follow the plan but, after a look of instinctual decision making, she nodded in agreement.

"GO!" he said before he charged the nearest vamp behind cover.

As soon as his line of sight was obstruction free he opened up, aiming for the spine or the head, depending on which turned out to be closer to his crosshairs. As soon as he saw the vamps behind the first clump of cover begin to fall to the ground he changed direction to the next closet grouping. He knew Buffy would be right behind him, staking the vamps he'd disabled before following him to the next group. All he had to do was keep doing what he was doing with his remaining ammo, trusting that Joyce would cover him so he didn't get in too much over his head.

Two quick sniper shots from Joyce hit the cover he believed that Spike and his girlfriend had ducked behind but that position was still a ways ahead of him. He had to remain aware of where the greatest threat would be but stay focused on taking every position of cover closest to him one at a time.

Deal with the threats in front of you before moving on to the ones further away.

However, as he reached the position of cover just two shy of Spike's hiding spot, reality chose this moment to make one of the concerns of his strategy a reality.

With an ominous click his MRS-4 told him that he was out of ammunition and he knew all too well that he'd been on his last mag. Worse than that, the vamp in front of him at the moment knew that, too, and with Buffy coming up behind him he must've looked like a hostage of opportunity. Unfortunately the bloodsucker's brush of good fortune made it careless and THAT was something he could take advantage of.

As soon as the vamp got to within reach he let his inner Snake take control and tried to immerse himself in the skills he'd managed to dredge up from his mind. Step one, reach for arm extended furthest in your direction, step two, once a solid grip has been established, reposition yourself and then step three, use the momentum of the vamp plus your own movements to execute a throw. One of the good things of a CQC style that was major parts both Judo and Jujitsu was that neither style was all that hampered by someone who was stronger or faster than you.

As a result, the vampire who thought he had himself a helpless hostage suddenly went airborne before landing in the ground behind him, temporarily dazed.

Looking at the vamp's shocked companion he charged forward before the bloodsucker could recover and executed another throw, slamming the creature to the ground. Just as the first one he'd thrown recovered enough to begin to get to its feet Buffy was there, ramming a stake into its heart before doing the same to the second one.

Putting himself back behind cover he tried to think of what to do next.

He was out of ammunition and the other vamps wouldn't so easily be taken by surprise, even if he rushed them, and without surprise their superior speed would make taking them down impossible.

"How many left?" he asked Buffy after she took a crouched position next to him.

"Six, not including Spike and his girlfriend," she replied, looking like she was decidedly more optimistic about their chances than she had been before the shooting had started. "This time you follow me. I'll knock'em down then you make sure they stay down. Got it?"

"Right behind you, boss lady," he replied with a grin feeling like things were finally going their way.

Buffy left cover and began to advance on the remaining vampires, confidence in her stride, and him feeling a little bit of it himself. As soon as they arrived at the next grouping Buffy delivered a combo of kicks and punches that sent her foe to the ground. He didn't hesitate to move forward and slam the stake Buffy'd tossed in his direction into the undead corpse's chest right where the heart would be. Seeing it turn to ash he looked up just in time to witness the blonde Slayer toss the second one down to the ground, allowing him to repeat the process he'd used on the previous one.

Looking up, he was just in time to see what looked to be Spike and his girlfriend running for their undead lives.

Two shots from their overwatch sizzled overhead and, sadly, despite Missus Summers' best efforts, they managed to evade the shots until they were almost certainly out of the sniper's line of sight.

Not the ending he would've preferred but being alive and driving off the vamps that would've snacked on those sheep in the Sunset Club was enough to mark this as a victory.

There was just one thing left to do before heading home.

Turning to where he presumed Joyce's sniper nest was, he waved his hands back and forth to get her attention before using hand gestures to tell her what to do.

The same thing he was going to do.

Seeing a flash of light off of what he presumed was the scope of a rifle, he began the tedious but necessary job as he knelt down.

"What're you doing?" Buffy asked, walking up to his side.

"Picking up all the shell casings from my rifle," he replied as he picked up another shell before moving to where the next scattering of them were. "Even if the local P.D. don't show up soon, they will come at sunrise and I put every round I fired into the magazines by hand. They've got my fingerprints all over them. When you don't have a badge and you do shit like this, cleaning up after yourself is a necessity."

At the mention of police and possibly seeing cop cars outside of his home, Buffy immediately went to work helping him and for that he was glad. With her Slayer senses she'd be sure to find the ones he missed because, while he doubted that the local police were competent, he'd prefer not to take any chances.

Better to treat them like they were the best in the state and be proven wrong than to take them too lightly only to wind up in handcuffs.

It didn't mean that picking up the shells ejected from his rifle were any more fun to pick up, though. Maybe he needed to look into a brass catcher of some kind. And gloves. He was definitely wearing gloves when he reloaded.

 _ **Town Hall, Mayor's Office**_

 _ **Mayor Wilkins' POV**_

"Well, isn't this is a surprise!" he said as he finished listening to the report. "And you're certain of every word?"

"Yes sir," the vampire in front of him replied. "I monitored the situation at the Sunset Club and, when the fighting began, I made sure to commit every detail to memory. I know how much you care about the details, sir."

"Indeed I do. In my line of work missing a detail or two could mean the difference between success and a very messy end," he said honestly, both referring to politics and his 'hobby'. "You've given me a lot to think about. I'll see to it that Doctor Sanderson sets aside three extra bags of blood at the hospital for you. You may leave."

A nod was all he received in return before the vampire left him to his thoughts.

When he'd first heard that one of the Slayer's old friends from Los Angeles had come to Sunnydale, he'd considered it a minor detail since the young man was most likely a 'civilian' who knew nothing of the truth. However, when the lad went to some great effort to establish a club for admirers of vampires, this had added a new wrinkle to the mix that only continued to get more complex. Being a longtime planner himself, it hadn't taken him long to deduce the lad's intentions and, to be honest, he was a bit impressed. So many young men and women of the current generation didn't care about planning more than a few months in advance and certainly not anything truly ambitious. It was heartening to see that at least one boy was shooting for the brass ring.

However what happened only a few short hours ago troubled him because of how the altercation had turned out.

Miss Summers arriving during the day to confront her old friend about his duplicity had been expected, since it was in keeping with the psychological workup he'd had an associate do on her. It also hadn't been a surprise that young Mister Fordham had rigged the door to the club to only be capable of being opened from the outside. What had been a surprise though was young Mister Harris showing up with an assault rifle and freeing the Slayer just a short while before sundown. From there it'd been one surprise after another until he was left with a potential problem.

In an act that defied conventional norms, firearms had proven themselves to be effective in repelling a sizeable vampire group.

Ever since firearms had become common, both demons and demon hunters had experimented to see how effective they'd be against their enemies. On humans they worked as expected but, when used against demons, they often only proved effective if the shots did enough physical damage to overcome the inherent durability or regenerative ability of most dangerous demons. Nevertheless, the various demon lords and clan leaders were wise enough to realize that, given enough time, humans might develop firearms that were better and more of a threat.

Thus a plan was hatched.

In one all-encompassing action they started or became involved in conflicts with several notable demon hunting groups, up to and including the Watcher's Council. The intent was to orchestrate events that would rub the noses of the various groups in the fact that guns were useless against demons, or at least inefficient. By doing this they managed to push humans into believing that the old traditional ways of vanquishing demons was the only way to do things. This, of course, suited the various demon breeds since the number of normal humans capable of killing a demon with bladed weapons or arrows were few and even those few did not last long before being slain.

Of course every few decades some youngster got it into their head that they could make it work, but fortunately most of them were too incompetent to succeed.

Those that weren't and might well have succeeded were suitably dealt with and discredited so that no one would take their work seriously; the ravings of the insane and all that.

Now one Alexander Harris and, he suspected, Joyce Summers had managed to call this 'truth' into doubt. As was the case with most scandals it wouldn't be long before all of Sunnydale heard that William the Bloody had been sent running with his proverbial tail between his legs by two humans with guns. Even if he employed the usual methods for keeping the truth from making it very far, he doubted that this would be an isolated incident. Both the Summers woman and Harris boy had just pulled off a major achievement, which would spur them onwards to seeing how far they could run with it.

That could prove to be a problem, especially if they managed to inspire someone with resources to contribute to their efforts.

With a sigh he realized where the root of the issue had been planted and it was his own devilish inner child that had kept him from taking action to prevent it. When Ethan Rayne, a notable chaos mage, had come to town, he'd suspected that the man's calling would crop up, but when the man opened a costume shop he'd been curious. It was only after he'd arranged a meeting with the man to learn his intentions that he'd gone from curious to amused. A spell that would cause all who purchased an item from the man's shop to become that which they had chosen to pretend to be. Mister Rayne had, of course, assured him that each trick or treater would be a mere shadow of whoever they were pretending to be. A kid who dressed up to Superman would indeed gain the Kryptonian's abilities but they would at best be a twentieth, if not less, of what the genuine article possessed. Add to that the fact that when the spell came to an end no one would retain anything and he'd considered the event a source of amusement.

He'd been wrong.

The sheer amount of chaos magic that'd been unleashed that night had sent him into a minor frenzy working to ensure that the various spells he'd cast on Sunnydale remained intact and functional. He was, after all, on the road to Ascension and that wouldn't sit well with certain individuals who had plans of their own that didn't include a pure demon roaming about. As such he'd been forced to take steps when he'd founded Sunnydale, to keep any energies or portents from leaking to outside parties. It'd also been back then that he'd erected the special field that made all who did not come into direct contact with the supernatural rationalize anything unusual as something normal. If those two things were destroyed or damaged in some manner, it would compromise his entire effort and so he'd done his best Halloween night to keep that from happening.

In the days that followed he'd had his best people evaluate the effects the chaos energy had had on the surrounding environment as well as those that'd been enchanted. Most of the results had been disconcerting but not alarming, such as the difficulty in spell casting for the next few years. However, when he received word of the changes that'd remained in Slayer Summers and her associates, he'd frowned at the adjustments that he'd need to make to his plans. The most important of those alterations had been an increase in security around the nearby military base and a discussion with Detective Stein to be extra vigilant in the area of gun control and illegal firearms.

He'd even looked into ways of placing metal detectors at the local high school as a 'preventative measure' against school shootings. The only difficulty he'd been having on that front was fabricating the justification for them in the first place. There had been no newsworthy shootings in the last few years that he could use as a springboard event for putting the machines into practice. He was confident he'd find the justification he needed, even if he had to find some suitably bullied teenager to go on a shooting spree.

Now, though, with what Alexander Harris and Joyce Summers had managed, he was beginning to wonder if he had as much time as he thought he had.

Both of them had proven themselves to be more capable than what he'd previously anticipated and, if they, along with the others, continued to grow in that direction, more aggressive action would be necessary. For now, though, he would pay closer attention to the group, very close attention, to see if his fears were justified.

 _Though perhaps a little proactive action would not be unwarranted,_ he thought with a frown. _A suitable method kept in waiting should the threat they pose be verified._

The usual method of dealing with a threat would be to employ a suitable demon or cast a spell to remove them from the stage of life. Against a Slayer and a Watcher, though, such a method might not work without tipping someone off to his existence. The number of people who knew the truth about him weren't very many and fortunately those who did he had managed to trick into a magically binding contract not to reveal what they knew to anyone on pain of death. That being said, no one in the supernatural community worth knowing about would fail in keeping rudimentary tabs on the persons of interest in their area, or even the famous individuals that could enter their area. If he contracted the work out or attempted to acquire spell ingredients that would be beyond a Watcher's ability to counter, that would be noticed. If those that noticed were curious and sent agents to investigate, that would simply be even more troublesome work that he'd have to do to keep things running smoothly.

He needed something more subtle, something that could be written off as something typical of the Hellmouth, and yet at the same time reliable for dealing with his problem.

 _Perhaps a little research will give me the inspiration I need._

 _ **Sunnydale High School Library**_

 _ **Dawn's POV**_

"While the matter seems to be resolved satisfactorily, I cannot help but feel a bit disappointed that I was not consulted before you took action, Xander," Giles said after placing his freshly cleaned glasses back on his nose.

"You were dealing with Snyder and I knew you wouldn't like me using a gun," Xander said, laying out the plain facts. "That and time was a factor."

"Be that as it may, you may wish to exercise a little more caution in the future," Giles said with sincere concern. "Especially with the use of firearms. You were fortunate this time that you were able to take them by surprise. Next time you might not be so lucky."

"What do you mean? Xander and Mom totally kicked ass!" she exclaimed, still buzzed by the story of how Spike had been sent running.

"Firearms have been proven to be unreliable in the war on demonkind. In some cases it has proven to be sufficient but in others useless. As a result it is the policy of most demon hunting groups to employ more reliable weaponry and tools in the fight," Giles explained in an instructional manner. "In many cases it is simply the fact that most demons are too fast to keep an accurate bead on making doing sufficient damage rather difficult. In others the dense bone structure or regenerative abilities make whatever damage the bullets do pointless."

Taking that in, she could see how those obstacles would be pains to overcome but she still thought that modern weaponry was superior to swords and axes. The old tools required years of training before the user could be considered skilled, whereas with guns it was basically point and shoot. For guns the only additional thing you needed to learn was how to take environmental variables into account in order to improve accuracy. She might not know how long it took the average person to get a feel for those things and up their accuracy but it had to be less time than it took to become proficient in bladed weaponry.

"Then, of course, there are the legal ramifications of employing firearms as weapons," Giles said, taking his reasoning further. "In most cases it is significantly hard to acquire the certification and qualifications that are required in order for a civilian to be permitted to carry a firearm in public. I find it doubtful that we could gain permission for all of us to carry firearms and, even if we did, there are only so many legal reasons for civilians to fire their weapons in public or at anyone."

"Yeah. You start shooting and the cops show up telling you to drop the gun and get down on the ground," Buffy said, showing she was of the same mind as her Watcher. "Slaying demons and saving the world's difficult enough without dodging the police. It's a pain in the ass just dealing with Snyder."

"I'm not saying we go all OK corral with what we've got but with silenced gear and a little strategic planning we can manage," Xander said, not willing to give up on guns for slaying. "Besides, you know like I do that the local P.D. are blind and deaf to trouble in Sunnydale."

"Only of the supernatural sort. Guns are conventional enough that they fall under the definition of 'normal' and therefore it is more likely that they will take action," Giles pointed out, not willing to concede defeat just yet.

"Which is why I made sure we picked up all the shell casings before leaving the Sunset Club," Xander said defensively, crossing his arms across his chest. "I also rubbed down anything me or Buffy might've touched going in or coming out of the place. The only way the cops'll know we were there is if they believe a bunch of vamp lovers and I don't see that happening."

"Regardless of how well the matter has been resolved, that does not mean that others will end so favorably in the future," Giles said, getting a bit more heated. "It would be reckless to push one's luck any further."

"And where's playing it safe gotten us so far, Giles?" Xander asked, meeting heat with heat. "Based on everything you've told me, the fight against the demons has been going on since the beginning of recorded history, if not longer. Have we wiped out the hostile species of demons? Have we driven them from the planet? How many of us have they killed compared to how many of them we've killed? Or have we just been maintaining the status quo for thousands of years?"

"I share your frustration concerning the status quo but modern weaponry is not the answer!" Giles replied beseechingly, as though trying to make Xan understand. "It is a theory bandied about the Council water cooler that several powerful demon lords and their allies have what could be termed a 'big red button'. A precaution they have in case humanity ever showed elevated aggression against demonkind. It is believed that enough members of the demon hunting community's leadership believe in this to unofficially agree to keep the war covert and limited."

"And did this leadership share this info with the rank and file?" Xander asked, not liking what he'd heard. "Did they even give you a censored briefing on why the war can't be escalated? Or is all this just rumors and barroom talk?"

"Well… no, but-" Giles replied, sounding like he had nothing to fall back on.

"Then for all you know the reason we haven't taken the fight to the demons is because all the heads of these groups are a bunch of tradition loving inflexible morons." Xander fired back, the rasp fully in his voice now. "Or maybe they're so in love with the power they have during the war they don't want to lose it by winning the war."

"Now you listen here and you listen well!" Giles yelled, finally having lost at least a portion of his emotional restraint. "Every Watcher I have ever met or had the pleasure of working with has had one thing in common: every last one of them was one hundred percent committed to the fight! They give their all day in and day out to keeping the darkness at bay!"

"I'm not talking about the rank and file, Giles! I'm talking about the people that make the big decisions! The ones that make the rules everyone else has to follow!" Xander said, standing up to glare at Giles eye to eye. "What can the good people do when the people in charge tie their hands and get in the way?"

"I might not like Travers and his ilk but the Council is a democratic organization. If there were any grounds for your suspicion of negligence or willful obstruction of our cause, he would've been arrested and placed on trial. If found guilty he would've been stripped of all authority and likely undergo selective memory removal to eliminate him as a security risk."

"Only if he's incompetent at covering his tracks and doesn't have friends in all the right places to keep tabs on any action being taken him," Xander countered, not backing down from his point of view. "Unless you can prove to me that the Council leadership has to swear some kind of magical oath that'll kill'em if they ever betray the cause, I'm sticking to my version of the truth."

For a few seconds the two men just looked at one another but, just when she thought that another round of yelling was to begin, Giles sighed in defeat.

"You are entitled to your opinion, Xander, and currently I lack the evidence to change your mind," Giles said in a more reasonable tone of voice. "Nevertheless, I must insist that any further use of firearms be run by me first. As Buffy's Watcher, her safety is my top priority and I will not tolerate anything that places her or her mission in jeopardy. Are we clear?"

"Crystal," Xander replied before turning to leave the library.

Looking to see if any of the others were going to go after him to calm him down, she was a little annoyed to see no one even try. With a bit of a huff she got out of her chair and went after him to hopefully cool him down enough to at least acknowledge the other side of the argument, even if neither of them agreed with it. She understood why Giles thought that way, he was in many ways a man of the past, and so she didn't hold it against him too much for sticking to what he knew.

Men were stubborn after all.

However she couldn't let the friction she'd seen just now cause cracks to form in the team that was all that stood in the way of the demons ruling the Hellmouth. For them to do their jobs, they needed to be in synch with one another, not yelling at one another and glaring. If none of the others were going to work on sanding off the rough edges that Xander probably had at the moment, then she would.

He'd probably be less likely to yell at her, too.

He had a soft spot for her.

 _ **Springfield, Illinois, America**_

 _ **Evening**_

 _ **Midtown Inn**_

She had a problem.

She had a problem and she needed to figure out a way to deal with it.

When she'd woken up in the middle of that field, she'd fought tooth and nail to stay who she was and, once that was done, she'd made for Ghent. It'd been hard at first, sneaking about trying to find clothing, but fortunately there were enough people who hung their clothes on clotheslines for her to get the basics pants and shirt. From there she'd started working ways of getting back to Sunnydale and that'd kept her occupied for a good number of hours, but in the end she'd chosen hitchhiking. She didn't have any money and didn't have all that much experience with stealing it from people, so she had no other choice but to rely on the kindness of strangers.

That had worked for a while, at least.

A old couple willing to help out a 'nice girl', a man that thought she looked like his little girl and THEN she got a ride from a guy who at first seemed nice but became a complete scum bucket. It'd started out with a few offhand comments about how pretty she was but THEN things changed. He started getting a little too friendly, started asking about what she liked and then offered to show her a few spots he knew 'along the way'. However it'd been when he'd he put a hand on her thigh and started rubbing that she'd clued into what he really wanted out of her. He'd probably been planning on asking her to pay her hitchhiker's fee once they got as far west was he was going but she'd chosen to get out early.

He hadn't liked that and had tried to cash in his payment early.

She'd resisted.

He'd insisted.

And that had been when things had gone to hell.

Something had… clicked… inside of her and before she even realized what was going on she'd grabbed the guy by the wrist and squeezed until the asshole was on the ground, before kicking him in the face knocking him out cold. As soon as she was convinced that the man was unconscious the same something had clicked off and she'd been left to clean up the mess. A little afraid of what she'd done she'd jumped at the distraction of safely disposing of him. She'd ransacked his vehicle and his pockets for anything of value, giving priority to cash or items that could be fenced at a pawn shop. Once that'd been accomplished she'd parked his car someplace out of the way, with him tied up in the trunk with some bungee cords she'd found.

She hadn't expected them to hold him for long and the parking spot wasn't far enough out of the way that no one would find him if he failed to get out.

If his luck really stunk and he… died, she'd feel a little bad about it, but only a little.

After all, she only knew his face and nothing else, so even if he died it probably wouldn't rate anything more than a small obituary in the local newspaper.

She couldn't feel bad about getting someone killed if she never found out in the first place.

A few hours later she'd arrived at a big enough city that there was a good selection of pawn shops to choose from, so she'd divided her spoils amongst them to lower the risk of anyone getting suspicious. Anything with an identifying mark or inscription was either damaged further to make positively identifying it impossible just in case the original owner filed a police report listing items she'd stolen. In the end she'd gotten a decent amount of travel money but she still needed to stretch it where she could and that was why she was currently at the cheapest motel in Springfield.

That hadn't been the only problem she'd encountered before today, though.

No, the BIG problem hadn't happened until she'd gotten caught up in a convenience store robbery a few days before. The man had been a complete crackhead and had obviously been looking for a way to get enough money to feed his habit, but given the sort of shakes he'd been showing he hadn't had much success until then. Naturally she'd done her best not to draw his attention as he waved his gun in the cashier's face but then the guy had gotten the bright idea to rob everyone else in the store while he was at it. One by one he'd gone to people like a bomb about to go off and she'd been afraid that if something wasn't done he'd follow a warped line of though that'd end with him killing everyone who'd seen his face.

So she'd asked herself: what would Buffy do?

As much as she might hate her older sister for some of the things she did, she still looked up to her because hey who wouldn't look up to a real live superhero.

She'd also asked herself what Xander would do and oddly enough the two courses of action could basically be summed up in wait until the enemy gets close, distract them with something and then rush them. The idea was that, if she moved quickly enough, she could force the barrel of his gun skyward and then knee him in the crotch before delivering a right cross to the jaw. She'd gotten as far as grabbing the hand holding the gun but the firearm must've had a feather trigger because it'd gone off and she'd felt the impact of the bullet. However instead of crippling pain she'd felt nothing and when she'd reached down to pull up her shirt to look at the wound she'd seen something that could not possibly have been considered human.

A pool of silver colored liquid spread out from the point of impact about the size of a coaster.

Then she'd watched the liquid flow back towards the center, expelling the bullet, before becoming smooth as steel, and then like a ripple it went back to looking like perfectly normal skin.

She'd raised her gaze to the druggie and she'd been able to tell that he'd seen the same thing happen, and then in a split second she threw a haymaker to his jaw. She'd broken his jaw in the process but at least he'd been removed from the equation and then she'd bent down to scoop up the gun but she'd also picked up the spent bullet. On the fly she'd come up with the excuse that the guy had loaded his gun with blanks because he hadn't had the balls to use live rounds. It helped that she'd palmed the magazine before walking out of the store, ignoring their comments about needing to stay to give the police a statement.

She hadn't stopped moving until she'd reached the Midtown in and then used what money she had for a room.

Now, with no distractions, she had little choice but to think of the strange qualities she'd discovered about herself.

She didn't like the conclusion her mind was coming up with.

The sudden show of strength and combat skills could've been written off as something Hellmouthy or maybe a sign that some of what made a girl a Slayer was genetic. However there was no mistaking the inhuman nature of her flesh becoming a pool of liquid silver to take a bullet and then kicking the bullet out before reforming to its previous state. What had she become? Did it have something to do with how she'd been dumped in Ghent? She didn't know. For all that she'd learned about the Hellmouth and magic, she didn't know nearly enough to be able to conclusively say yes or no to that question. All that she could conclusively say was that she was not human anymore and, if she wanted to return to normal, then she needed to get back home so Mister Giles could fix her. He was like a magic encyclopedia with legs, so until she got proof to the contrary, she'd operate under the assumption that he could fix her until proven otherwise.

The thing that made time a deciding factor, though, was that IT, the other part of her that she'd wrested control of her body from, was making it clear that it was still there. She'd thought that once she'd won control of her body that it'd been destroyed, or at least would never become a problem again, but that wasn't true. It was the proverbial person watching you from across the street, following you from only a block or two behind and she had a hunch that it had ties to her new weirdness. Had it been behind her kicking that bastard's ass when he'd attempted to force himself on her? Or was it stuck just being an observer and would pounce if an opportunity to take back the body popped up?

She didn't know.

All she did know was that now she had to keep watch, use some of those meditation techniques Mister Giles had taught Buffy, to make sure no opportunities popped up. The Summers family stubbornness might've won the day before but that didn't mean it'd always work. If she'd been transformed into some kind of robot and IT turned out to be the mind attached to that robot body, then it'd adapt to her and eventually overcome her if she didn't get to Giles quickly enough.

What it'd do to her then she didn't know and didn't want to know.

All she could say with certainty was that it wouldn't be of the good.

 _All the more reason to head out at first light,_ she thought with a frown. _Maybe even splurge and pool the rest of my money on a bus ticket._

Rationing out money to pay for motels had shown that she had just enough to last until she arrived back in Sunnydale after factoring in rest time. However a bus ticket across the country would be expensive, almost two hundred dollars if her math was right, and she didn't know if it'd get her to where she wanted to go quicker or slower. At the time her urgency had been simply because she had wanted to see her family and friends again but now she had a fire lit under her ass to pick up the pace. If she didn't get there soon enough, IT might succeed or perhaps draw attention to her by causing her inhumanness to show in public.

She'd seen enough sci-fi films to know that if the government or greedy corporations found out about the new her, they'd descend on her like vultures. A functional robot was something that was still in the realm of sci-fi at the moment, with no one being able to make anything close to being as advanced as her robo-body apparently was. If someone captured her now and had eggheads smart enough to figure her out they'd manage a leap forward decades ahead of the competition, maybe more. That'd be worth breaking a few rules over and maybe even a few laws if the people calling the shots thought the payday would be big enough.

As a result the urgency to get back to Sunnydale kicked up five notches and now a bus ticket was proving to be more than worth the financial expenditure.

The money she had wouldn't really do her much good if she got nabbed by men in black and chained to a disassembly table, now would it.

 _ **The Hallways of Sunnydale High School**_

 _ **The Next Day**_

 _ **Willow's POV**_

"So it's all tied up?" Xander asked low enough to reduce the odds of bystanders.

"Ford's parents have been tipped off as to where he is now and what he's been up to. According to the S.P.D. database there's no record of there being anything substantial found in or around the Sunset Club," she replied, remembering what her hacking had turned up. "I also checked to see if the cops had been asked to keep an eye out for illegal bullets but nothing digital to say that they were. Might've just gotten a paper copy of the request, though."

"Even if they did it just means I'll have to count my shots and make sure I pick up all the brass when the fighting's done," Xander said, sounding satisfied with her work.

"Maybe you should slow up a bit with the gun stuff," she said tentatively since she didn't want him to get mad then storm off. "Modern stuff might not be completely useless for fighting the big bads but we're still high school students, not big time badasses that can fight small armies singlehanded."

"I know but we'll never get there if we're too afraid to push ourselves," he said, sounding annoyed rather than angry, even if he did understand her references. "I'm doing what I can to pump some iron and I'm getting closer to the five mile fifty minute mark."

"Getting all muscled up is only half the equation, Xander," she pointed out to make sure he didn't gloss over the facts. "You still need to learn the moves that go with them. There's a reason self-taught fighters don't always do so well."

"Yeah. With no one around to point out the mistakes, they get set in stone 'til you need a sledgehammer to break the bad habits and learn how to do it right," he said, reluctantly conceding the point, "but who am I gonna have teach me? Most of what I know no one else does and the number of people who can spar with me to help get the kinks out number three. Cordy, Buffy and Dawn, to be precise."

That sounded about right.

Cordy had only been dropping in randomly since Halloween to find out if any progress had been made in turning them back to normal. The cheerleader hadn't come up with any new rants since that first blow up, so she assumed that Cordelia was managing to keep her Black Widow side under wraps. To that end it wasn't likely that the girl would volunteer for sparring matches. Dawn might be more willing but that was because she had a crush on Xander and finally had a body good enough to make a move. Buffy would think she was nuts if she said that out loud but she knew a crush when she saw one and, to be honest, she still did have one for Xander. Dawn wouldn't be able to keep her mind on the sparring and the learning if she was too busy putting the moves on her crush.

Oddly enough Buffy was the safe choice since she'd learned some fighting skills from Giles and Sonya Blade was supposed to be special forces, so her fighting style would be the closest to Snake's. There were just two problems with that plan. The first was the fact that the blonde girl had never really sparred with a normal human being and Giles always used pads to protect himself when he trained Buffy. If Xander tried to spar with Buffy there was no guarantee that the Slayer wouldn't accidently slip up with how much power she put behind each move.

The second problem was that she'd spoken with Buffy and knew that she didn't want Xander or any of them to try to learn what they had 'inherited' Halloween night. Her friend was afraid that doing so would change them too much from who they were into whoever they'd been dressed up as that night. She'd known early on after becoming friends with Buffy that one of the things the blonde wanted more than anything was to go back to being an ordinary teenager. Not that she blamed the girl since she'd want her old life back, too, if all of sudden all her futures got reduced to just fighting monsters in what'd probably felt like the blink of an eye.

As for her, she wasn't sure how she felt about her new enhancements.

On the one side of the coin she was loving the new knowledge she'd gained from R because it gave her ideas for things she could make to help Buffy. True, a lot of them required parts that weren't exactly available at your local electronics store but she bet that she could splice together some work arounds with a bit of time. It'd only been a short while since Halloween and she'd managed to think up so many possibilities it made her wonder what she'd be able to devise with even more time, plus better resources. If even half of her ideas could be made real, then maybe Xander's dream of a more aggressive fight against the darkness wouldn't be so dangerous.

On the other side of the coin, going back to normal did appeal to her.

By going back she wouldn't have to see Xander become harder and less caring as Snake's soldier instincts drove certain points home. By going back Dawn would regain some years and wouldn't have to get involved in any Scooby business for a little while longer. By going back, Missus Summers wouldn't have the memories and skills of someone that may or may not have been an assassin for hire.

Everything could stay like it had been.

Difficult but still fun, with the sun of hope in the air.

Too bad time only flowed in one direction.

"Giles can still watch you go through your routines, see you punch and kick, and maybe he can give you a few pointers," she said as they saw the library doors come into view.

"Well, he'll have to give me a few pointers after computer class," he said, closing to arm's length with the library door. "We barely got time to check in with him."

However just as Xander was about to push the door open he stopped, seeing something through the circular window built into it, before immediately moving to the side. Performing a hand signal that was easy enough to understand she moved to mirror him, albeit on the other side of the doorframe. Unlike him, though, she needed to know a bit more about why she was suddenly being all sneaky, so she inched as close as she could to the door window before peeking through.

"There was a homicide on campus last night. The victim had no identification, but he was carrying this slip of paper with your name and address on it," one person dressed like a cop said, holding up an evidence baggie.

"My name?" Giles asked, setting down a briefcase he'd been holding.

"Yes. We'll need you to come down to the station to positively ID the body and answer a few questions," the cop said with the usual tone of authority.

"O-of course. I'd be happy to assist the police," Giles said with a somewhat uneasy acceptance.

Predicting what was going to happen next, she and Xander immediately vacated the area around the library door before acting like they'd just been loitering in the hallway chatting. The cops and Giles left a short while later but Xander waited until all three were out of earshot before dropping the act.

"Can you hack into the P.D. to get a look at the most recent homicides?" he asked her and she bet he had something he'd be doing too.

"I'll know what they know inside of twenty minutes," she said before entering the library and heading for the only computer there.

"Good. Once we have more to work with we can figure out what's coming after Giles," he said before taking a position near the door that was obviously defensive.

"You don't think he's going to tell us?" she asked as the computer booted up.

"With the police involved? Not likely," he replied with a shake of his head. "He'll want us to keep our distance until the P.D. shelve the case or label it 'solved'. Best way to do that is to not tell us about it at all."

"And if we told him we found out?" she asked as she got online and began to navigate the net to the back door she had in the police department.

"He'll still tell us not to do anything until the police aren't paying attention," he replied, looking through one of the library door windows. "Problem is it's anyone's guess how long that'll be and time isn't something we usually have a lot of when the things with too many teeth come calling."

"I'm in. We're in luck, only two homicides last night," she said as she pulled the information up. "One was a woman, Mexican, in her early twenties. I think we can rule her out since the cop talking to Giles clearly said 'he' so that just leaves contestant number two. A man, forty-nine years of age, identified as one Philip Henry of the U.K. Preliminary examination by the coroner cites 'severe hand-shaped bruising around the neck, suggesting strangulation'."

"So something brings an old friend of Giles' across the pond and across the country to Sunnydale but he never makes the meeting because someone or something kills him?" he said, piecing everything together. "A Watcher, maybe? Playing courier for something or maybe needing to pass on info to Giles? Anything in the report about signs of theft?"

"No, but it's still early. According to the preliminary examination, death happened between nine and eleven last night," she replied continuing to pump the police database for information. "If they were a normal police department they'll need at least another day before they have more info about Mister Henry."

"Okay… okay… after classes today you get online and see if you can find out when he arrived in town, what airport he came out of and whatever else you can find out," he said, a plan forming in his mind. "If something Hellmouthy was chasing him and maybe after Giles, it doesn't strike me as the subtle type."

"Strangulation kinda gives that away," she said, nodding in agreement.

Following Mister Henry's trail might be difficult from the airport to Sunnydale but she was confident that she'd be able to find out when he arrived in country. After that it'd just be a matter of combing through the police databases and maybe a few hospitals along the most direct routes. While people might not acknowledge the existence of the paranormal, they didn't always recognize the signs of the paranormal, so they put them in the reports, never knowing what slipped past them.

She, on the other hand, would.

"Okay, that's all the time I have for right now," she said as she covered her digital highway tracks and shut down the computer. "I'll go back in later."

"Let's just hope that we have a later," he said before taking up the rear as they both left the library for Miss Calendar's computer class.


End file.
